Race and Religion: A Congolese Church Revival

[NB: I wish that I had to pictures to post for this entry, but I don't. I do have two videos, but I'm not sure how to upload those yet. Maybe when I get back stateside I can figure it out.]

A Congolese co-intern invited me to attend a revival-type event at her Church a few weeks ago. Although I had little to no idea what exactly this would entail, I decided to go and find out! The event was to take place Thursday through Sunday evening, but I was assured that I only needed to go to one of these days, so I headed out on Sunday evening, the closing night. My colleague explained that the event was to mark the tenth anniversary of the Church and had a guest preacher who would be exploring the theme: Un Futur Glorieux (A Glorious Future). None of the other interns had agreed to go, so I took a deep breath and hopped into a taxi all by myself.

When I arrived in an unnervingly empty Woodstock across from the appropriately designated landmark, I have to admit that I had second thoughts about even trying to attend. There was no “Church” anywhere in sight (not a Church as I knew it, anyways). I noticed an advertisement sign for the event on a deserted corner building and asked a dodgy passerby if he knew anything of it. He shrugged, so I wandered a bit farther by. About 1.5 blocks off the main road (less-than-coincidentally named Main Road) I found a nicely dressed man and woman handing out pamphlets by the front door, so I approached them. They shot me confused looks but smiled and welcomed me inside as I explained that I was looking for Un Futur Glorieux. Another man immediately ushered me upstairs to the main room, all the while asking me if I was a) invited b) a preacher. Yes, I was invited, but the preacher comment caught me off guard. I suppose that is probably the bulk of White visitors the Church receives, visiting preachers on specific missions. As I entered the main room, there were only about 10 parishioners scattered across the room. It was around 5:50 pm (the event was set to start at 5:00 pm) so I immediately felt even more awkward. Luckily, I spotted my co-intern/friend Princia, who had invited me. She looked almost as shocked to see me as did the door-people but of course was delighted that I had made it and introduced me to her cousins / small entourage.

The stage consisted of a few musical instruments, a wandering preacher, room for excess choir members, and a garishly blinding stage light. The preacher was calling out group prayers impromptu and screaming passionately about Jesus; in both French and Lingala; with a randomly evoked, piercingly high-pitch. Princia asked one of the ushers to inform the preacher to only preach in French since on my behalf so that I could understand what he was saying. What endearing hospitality! This period of the service was apparently a long, warm-up, introductory session. People continued to fill into the room over the next hour in spite of my perceived hour tardiness. Africa-time strikes again, indeed! Princia left my side suddenly, and the next thing I knew she was on stage singing with the choir. I felt a bit uncomfortable when she first left but was also delighted to hear her sing for her congregation. After about an hour of this introductory prayer and intermixed song, the room was bustling: full to the brim.

I turned around to examine the now-full Church chamber. For the first time in my life, I was, quite literally, the only White person in attendance. Perhaps this feeling, more than any other experience at this Church revival, is why the event felt so critical in my South African journey. I have been in the minority many times before, especially working here in South Africa. Never before have I been the only White person at all, however; that is a completely different feeling. At first it was refreshingly invigorating. Having grown up in Upper-Middle Class White Suburbia, I have never really been able to experience this sensation of being in the minority. So much of my academic formation has traversed critical theory to critical theory referring to diverse socio-cultural communities, and now I was planted right in the middle! I couldn’t help to smile, feeling like I was really experiencing something “different,” something inaccessible at home. Of course one might go into downtown Detroit and experience something racially comparable, but I was moreover at a Congolese Church. All the individuals around me were also foreigners in South Africa; yet they had formed a small Diaspora community amongst themselves where they could continue on their own religious, cultural traditions in this hidden, urban corner of Cape Town.

My second initial sensation was that I was the conspicuous object of a gaze. I stood out. If I wasn’t a preacher, after all, what was I doing in that environment? Who invited me? Why wasn’t I attending my “own” Church? I am sure that a significant degree of this sentiment was my own consciousness. I noticed, I felt, that I stood out in this environment and therefore figured everyone else must also be taking note of this. Perhaps this is an egocentric sentiment in the first place and I was just feeling hypersensitive. It probably didn’t help that I was seated towards the front section, either. All those eyes were already moving forward in my direction; what might those individuals be thinking about me?

My third progressive feeling of being in the racial minority situated myself in the context of my religious environment. In the eyes of God, everyone [in that congregation] is considered to be brothers and sisters. I wondered, then, how that shaped the thoughts of all the Congolese parishioners. Maybe I was especially accepted at that time and in that place because I was sharing in worship with them. If I were to be attending a more secular event, of the same racial make-up, would that significantly alter how I was being perceived and treated? I know from my own viewpoint that it would affect how comfortable I felt. As terrible as it sounds, I couldn’t help but to also consider in the back of my mind my own personal security. Because I was such a visible target, I wondered if anyone might try to take advantage of me. I felt at points as if Christian dogma itself were protecting me. After a bit of time, however, I felt mostly at ease.

The style of worship at this event was vastly different than what I am used to. Parishioners were shouting out blessings, dancing joyfully, and speaking in tongues. Some were rocking back and forth and shedding tears. I tried to do my best to fit in to this sort of worship environment, but having been raised Catholic, my comfort zone reflects a quiet, orderly mass. At one point a band took the stage, and the singers simultaneously danced out the melodies replete with hip jostles, limbos, and fancy footwork. I found myself overcome with their energy and almost at once joined in. The guest preacher started talking perhaps 2.5 hours already into the event. He, too, hailed originally from the Congo, but he currently operates numerous Churches around South Africa. An English interpreter also came onto the stage to help interpret for other South African guests, and I found his interpretations nearly impeccable. I was so impressed, not only with his word choice, but with his effectiveness in conveying the original connotations and sentiments associated with the original speech. I felt a bit lost in the Lingala but otherwise completely understood.

The original event was supposed to last from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. I arrived at 5:50 p.m. to a nearly empty congregation and stayed until the end of the sermon just after 11:00 p.m. Africa time par excellence. My colleague, Princia, helped me to carpool back to Cape Town. This experience definitely expanded my comfort zone ten-fold. Not only did I get to feel what it is like to be a true “outsider” in a fascinating cultural community, but I was also able to observe many Congolese refugees in an ever-so-crucial Diasporic institution.

English, Français, na Kiswahili Linguistic Literacy

Although my job has consistently involved working approximately 50% of the time in French, I have recently noted a sudden surge of Swahili-work. As a result I now feel as though I am hovering three separate working mentalities. English is, of course, my primary means to communicate and carry out work responsibilities. It’s my native language, so instantly adapting to, explaining, and responding to client concerns / requests comes most naturally. Most refugees do not speak English as a native language, even if they have achieved near mastery (as have many Zimbabweans) so I have an automatic upper hand. I am linguistically limber enough to respond without concerted mental efforts to carefully filter my language. My work environment is obviously also in English, though curiously there are no native English speakers among the staff. All either speak Afrikaans or Xhosa as a primary language at home.

French frames my second distinctive work mentality. I completed a lot of interpretation work between French and English when I first began my internship, especially as I helped Annel to communicate with her francophone clients. Interpretation is quite a distinctive skill. Switching constantly between languages, especially the necessity of using one sense for one and another for the other (hearing French, speaking English) requires straddling sections of the brain and then instantly reversing the functions (hearing English, speaking French). It took me a few interviews to acquire basic competency of this skill, looking up a few discipline-specific vocabulary words, and adjusting my ears to the slightly different Afro-French dialects. Now that I primarily work with clients individually, however, I no longer use French within the domain of interpretation. I can carry out my entire interviews in French, only converting to English when explaining proper nouns and recording information on paper for client file records.

While pinpointing what language I will most likely be using based off of client country of origin and South African arrival date, I have even developed the usage of a handy initial linguistic device. French Canadians tend to greet strangers with a “Bonjour, hi” in order to determine the ensuing primary language of conversation, and in the same spirit, I greet my Congolese, Rwandan, and Burundian clients with a simple, “Hello, bonjour.” They then start talking to me in whichever language is preferable for them, some proud of their newly developed English language skills and wanting to test them out, others relieved to explain their troubles in a more familiar tongue. Regardless, working in French is my second work mentality. Over time I have developed particular response phrases, questions, and explications that differ slightly from my English versions. Now that I have fine-tuned my ears to African dialects of French, I find listening to clients explain their needs is often a simpler task for me if they are speaking French than English. The English proper nouns frequently pose problems, especially as they refer to areas of Cape Town or South African institutions with which I am already unfamiliar, but working in French is enjoyable, and second-nature. As with any foreign language, sometimes the words get caught up and communication is difficult; however most the time my explanations flow without problem, and often my slightly longer processing pauses (as compared to native English) allow me to choose more precise, professional, and appropriate language.

Working in Swahili is a completely different experience. I have had five semesters at MSU in rapid succession (two accelerated courses during last summer’s Summer Cooperative African Language Institute [SCALI]) and so I feel fairly comfortable navigating my way around the contours of the language. The CTRC has a three-page long intake form full of interview questions for new clients, and posing all these questions in Swahili takes a bit of thought but is not too much of a problem. Since I have been learning French for such a long period of time now, I have taken for granted and all but forgotten the intense learning curve associated with beginning to utilize language skills directly with native speakers.

In practical terms, this means that once refugee clients start trying to explain their situation in Swahili, in their own words, with native speaker grace / speed, and at any length, I struggle to keep up. Using my limited vocabulary, asking finite questions is not too difficult. Verbally drafting detailed explanations and understanding the details of their narratives is. To make matters worse, most of the clients that come in and wish to communicate in Swahili speak a drastically different dialect from the Congo and Rwanda than the Kenyan / Tanzanian Kiswahili Sanifu that I learned in the classroom. My linguistic shortcomings in Swahili create an altogether different dynamic in these situations than with Francophone or Anglophone clients. Firstly, I cannot even begin to explain the number of clients who have outright laughed at me when I have begun speaking to them in Swahili. It’s not that my accent or grammar is terrible (though of course I make my fair share of errors); they are just in shock that I possess any knowledge of their language. “HAHAHA Why do YOU know Swahili?” they ask. Whereas my fluent French conversations lead many refugees to believe I am either a South African who has mastered French or a Francophone European, my white skin and more ostensibly foreign accent in Swahili instantly mark me as an outsider. After their initial shock, however, clients’ reactions vary completely. Most veritably appreciate my effort to converse with them. Some begin explaining things to me at a pace that leaves me understanding approximately 40%. Others revert to first-month of Swahili 101 phrases, giggle gleefully at my successful responses, and then compliment me by saying “You speak Swahili very well!” From time to time the clients are just not satisfied with my efforts and attempt to find an interpreter all the same.

Mara kwa mara (from time to time) my Swahili skills hinder their ability to abuse the system. Certain clients attempt to use linguistic ignorance as an attempt to appear more vulnerable, feign understanding of anything, and receive increased assistance. Interpreters often collude, both conversing with the client in advance and manipulating answers to optimally benefit both parties. A few times I have interviewed a client in English then allowed them to fetch a Swahili interpreter when they could not sufficiently explain a story without informing them of my knowledge. In these situations, I could overhear the dynamics of the conversion and ensure that the client was being as truthful with me as possible. One time I made a client’s eyes almost bulge out of her head by responding in Swahili when she had been conversing with her interpreter and referring to me consistently as mzungu, a very lightly derogatory term for White people. I have otherwise had to rely upon my Swahili skills to explain the entire functioning of our food voucher system, to enquire about banking details, and to assess clients’ overall living situations.

The linguistic dynamism involved in my work has made my experience even richer than I could otherwise imagine. There are not too many jobs out there that would require such consistent usage of all my language skills (English, French, and Swahili). Via French and Swahili both, I feel as though I have really been able to reach out to refugees and accommodate their cultural comfort zones. I am not a native South African either; the clients and I are both outsiders (although many do not realize this). When I speak to them in French or Swahili, it often seems to ease the tension of my own positionality as “white development aid worker” by emphasizing shared linguistic background as a critical cultural node of mutual human understanding.

Real Refugees, Linguistic Labour, and African "Authenticity:" 1st Week at my Internship

11 February 2010

I have officially worked at the Cape Town Refugee Centre for a week now, so I suppose it is about time that I blog about my experience thus far.

For the Casual Reader: I am so content with my internship placement. In many ways, I can’t image a better synthesis to my Madison/overall education than what I do at the CTRC. When I graduate from MSU this May (hopefully!!!) my official degree will be “double majors in Comparative Cultures & Politics and French with specializations in African Studies and International Development.” My work literally allows me to dabble in each of these various areas. Refugees come to South Africa from various other cultural frames which guide the kinds of lives they desire to develop and lead here but also, as [often violently] displaced persons lead highly politicized lives. I work in French everyday, multiple times, engaging directly with refugee clients and acquiring a vocabulary of discipline-specific jargon. The African studies portion is quite obvious as I am IN Africa learning not only about South Africa but the various regions from which our refugee clients originate. The work itself is essentially development work; it is human development in the sense that we are attempting to develop/ameliorate the lives of individuals, but we focus strongly on basic problems of food security and habitation with additional programs relating to education, trauma therapy, and income-generating economics. The staff is incredibly welcoming, and I have already been entrusted with a great deal of legitimate work. I feel so blessed to have been given this opportunity, especially as the serendipitous outcome of a rather rocky internship search.

For the More Avid Reader: The commute to my internship is approx. 50-60 minutes door-to-door. That includes a 10-15 minute walk to the Cape Town central train station, a 35 minute train ride to a working-class southern suburb called Wynberg, and an additional 5 minute walk to my actual internship. The Cape Town Refugee Centre is located in a commercial complex called “The Wynberg Centre” adjacent to a post office, some small business ventures, and an escalator (roltrappe!) ride up from a small mall-type area. There is an enormous, informal outdoor marketplace spreading across the majority of the area. My first day impression was that, in contrast to my plush accommodations in the City Bowl (downtown Cape Town), this was a much more “authentic” Africa. Couldn’t help but smile as I was met with loads of fruit stands, hair-braiding salons, a mini-bus transit centre, street meat, commotion, energy, Afro-beats, working poverty, blatant loitering, hot-weather smoking, and general Blackness…By that I mean that Cape Town is a true representation of what South Africa likes to call itself: “The Rainbow Nation.” Blacks, Coloureds, Whites, Malays, Indians, Afrikaaners, foreigners, African immigrants, Middle Easterners. Yet, in the words of Kelly Moehlman when I told her I was going to South Africa @ThePeanutBarrel: “Cape Town is SO white!”

I understand what she means based on the City Bowl’s presence of Euro-cafés, cosmopolitan food, and general white privilege, but Wynberg is quite different. I hesitate to call it more ‘authentic’ because of the CCP baggage that comes along with that word, but let’s just say Wynberg is far more in tune to what I had imagined when wanting to come to the discursive conflation that we Westerners refer to as “Africa” (writ large). A bit dodgy, but not unsafe. To in turn complicate the idea of “authenticity,” the informal marketplace is BRIMMING with cheap American paraphernalia: High School Musical 3 backpacks that failed to sell back in the U.S. Various NBA-team jerseys from years back. T-shirts w/ corny slogans written across the front. Cheap watches. I immediately thought back to Professor Harrow’s class when we read a Nigerian novel and discussed the notion of ‘the bad copy.’ The image, representation of America and the Western entertainment industry, is everywhere. From my perspective it could easily be construed as a ‘bad copy’ of our everyday lives, the very items that failed to be bought in our culture and were turned over to anyone who would take them for cheap prices (NB: I need to research more on how this whole economic transition operates before so confidently asserting such things, but this is what I assume.) Yet, these items provide a livelihood for those that sell them. They take on meaning divorced from their 1st-level semiotic value (few are buying the backpacks as avid High School Musical 3 fans) and resurface as valuable commodities. Wynberg is by no means a township area, but it is definitely home to a lower-middle class sect of society with a vibrant outdoor market area. I’m digressing from my actually internship, so I’ll try to move on….

When I first arrived to the CTRC, I was surprised to find that I’ll be working with several other interns. I knew there was another intern there already (via my pre-departure twitter stalking) but I initially met an orientation with Christina (program director, CEO of the NGO if you will) and two other interns: Brett from UConn and Steph from some small school in PA. The intern-I-found-on-twitter’s name is Jenn and she is from the U of Oregon. Christina introduced the baseline structure of the Cape Town Refugee Centre so we could start to figure out where our background skills, education, and interest best make us fit into the organization. The CTRC is an NGO serving the greater Cape Town area’s refugees as an implementing partner of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). This means that we receive the bulk of our funding from the UNHCR and then allocate the funds according to specific budget lines and how we deem them best utilized. I’m sure I will write a lot more later analyzing the interrelationship between the UN, NGOs, and int’l political issues as I perceive them, but for now just think of the UNHCR as the int’l governing structure making decisions on refugee status / needs and my NGO, the CTRC, as the grassroots arm power enacting its policies. The South African government adds another variable to the equation in so far as it processes, grants, and “accommodates” both asylum seekers and bona fide refugees, but I’m still not totally clear on what its role entails, so I will add to that later as well.

The 3 main programs w/in the CTRC include: psychosocial services, education development, and an income-generating project. I have worked principally within the psychosocial service program thus far under a professionally trained social worker Afrikaaner woman named Annel. She is an incredibly kindly woman and has been a constant resource for my persistent questions, needed clarifications, and general obliviousness to certain organizational processes. The other main worker within this programme is Fwamba, who works with the bulks of incoming refugees to inform them what is / is not available for them through our NGO. The psychosocial services programme is a sort of umbrella project which seeks to assess the general lives, needs, and desires of our clients (The refugees are always referred to as clients…it is a very professional environment and relationship structure.) It is very social work heavy and involves the prescription of food vouchers, the artful construction of a file representing an overview of each client, and lots of referrals to other organizations / programs / businesses as deemed necessary. The main tool at our disposal is the interview. Clients arrive to the front waiting room, and then we call them back for interviews to determine what their most pressing needs are whilst attempting to screen out abusers of the social welfare system. In this sense, our office feels very doctor’s office-esque. They arrive, wait, and are called back for ‘treatment.’ From what I’ve observed, people wait for a long, long time, and no one seems to mind it. I think that is partly a symptom of the much more relaxed “Africa time,” partly something that refugees have by their very nature become accustomed to, and partly due to the overwhelming number of clients we must process in a relatively short amount of time.

The other two programmes are educational support and income-generating. I don’t know much about the educational support programme as of yet, but it is mainly designed to provide each and every refugee child available funding for schooling in South Africa. We strongly support universal education as a prerequisite for further aiding our clients and thus have significant funding available to help with registration and uniform costs. The income-generating programme is quite a bit more interesting. During our most recent fiscal review with the UNHCR, they decided to steeply increase the amount of monies we receive for the income-generating project and moderately decrease general monies available for more direct forms of aid. In the income-generating programme, refugees are encouraged to adapt the skills / experience they had working in their home countries and creatively modify them to economically integrate themselves into South African society. Funds go towards unavailable capital needed for small business ventures and basic skills training in available South African fields. The development scheme is quite similar to micro financing in that the businesses are not overly ambitious plans but small niches in the informal economy that are self-sustaining over time. Lots of craftiwork, lots of sales in the outdoor market areas, and some basic skills training. “Africa needs trade, not aid.” There is a noteworthy psychological aspect to this sort of development, too, as once individuals take some ownership and enterprise in their own lives, they gain a sense of both purpose and pride. I’d love to get more involved in this program within the upcoming weeks of work, for sure.

My French skills have been an ENORMOUS asset so far in my work. Our clients come mostly from the DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Somalia; so clearly French has come in handy. (For those less well-versed in the global French community, the DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, and Burundi are all significant French-speaking countries). Due to its sheer size and the perpetuation of its civil conflict, the DRC provides us with approx. 40-50% of total clients. Our senior social worker, Annel, grinned from ear to ear when we interns were all introducing ourselves and I explained that I had near-fluency abilities in French and a practical knowledge of Swahili. Granted she smiles like this often. Nonetheless, I have done some legitimate interpretation for her during her interviews and worked predominantly in French for some of my personally conducted interviews. Most clients have some English skills, but I would estimate that about 60% speak / understand French much better than they do English. I always start my interviews in English, because these people are in English-speaking South Africa and need to learn the language in order to adapt. However, as soon as there is sufficient difficulty in communication, I explain to them that I also speak French and offer them the possibility to carry on in that language instead. So far all of them have gladly accepted. Haha. The accent is a little different to understand but not as difficult as I had actually anticipated, and whenever I come across a discipline-specific or other vocabulary word that I do not know / have forgotten I merely use other words to explain the meaning, a feat that has proved very successful. In fact, interviews in English proceed much the same way. Often we must explain terms and ideas in multiple manners in order for the clients to understand what it is we are asking of them. My most rewarding experience was interpreting for a newly arrived Congolese family during their interview with Annel. Husband, 8+ month pregnant with twins wife, and two adorable little kids playing in the corner. This family understood virtually no English, and after Annel would ask/explain something, they would turn their heads to look at me with eyes of dire need. I felt at that moment like I was truly accomplishing something significant…my presence enabled this family a bit of comfort in a new environment and the capacity to explain their concerns to someone financially and professionally fit to help them.

I’ve used a bit of my Swahili, too, but many of the clients who speak Swahili are from East / Central Africa and also speak French. Thus, I have sometimes worked briefly in Swahili then transitioned into French. This week a new intern arrived who is studying in Cape Town but originally from Congo-Brazzaville so that gives me yet another chance to use my French skills in the workplace! None of the other interns have any significant linguistic background.

Last Friday, I made my first visit out into the townships. We don’t normally see clients on Fridays, but a single mother with 1 disabled son and 1 daughter showed up on our doorstep looking for urgent housing assistance. After working most the day on their case, Annel and I ended up personally driving the group to a shelter called “Bonne Espérance” in a township called Philippi. We took a few wrong turns on the way, so I really got to see the ‘other side’ of South Africa. The townships really are a different world than downtown Cape Town. So close geographically, yet I was firsthand witness to ambling goats blocking the streets, corrugated metal shacks jam-packed into a rural-urban ghetto, and the indescribable smell of extreme poverty. After seeing those sights, it seems difficult to consider taking South Africa off of a developing country list.

My most current work task involves the reassessment of certain grant recipients. We receive special donor-funded grants from the UNHCR for unaccompanied minors, children with disabilities, adults with disabilities, and elderly persons; but they must be reevaluated every 6 months in order to ensure that we are allocating our resources as effectively as possible. The current files haven’t been reassessed for 2 years due to more pressing needs, so that is my primary task for the next 1.5+ weeks. Unaccompanied minors are refugee children who, often because their biological parents are deceased, fall under the custody of other guardians. I have been digging through the CTRC’s file system the last few days to consolidate contact information, call the clients, set-up an appointment, interview them, and ultimately reassess whether or not they need this source of funding in their lives. A big task but also very rewarding.

I really do love my internship thus far. I feel as though I have studied issues like African politics, development, ‘African’ French, and int’l conflict for such a long time now, but in this job I can attach a human face. These are not Madison policy issues to debate with overzealous college students but cultures and politics that quite frankly govern the lives of visible, living, breathing human beings. On top of the issues, I am also getting a very strong feel for the operating procedures of an NGO as well as the possible conditions of their financing structures. I will definitely fill you all in more as I go on, but I also need to be careful not to compromise too much of our clients’ confidentiality.

Cheers!