I haven't written in here in forever and there is too much to say to really catch up at the moment, but I feel inclined to share the conversation I just had with anyone who may be reading this. This man has been working all day to set up an electric fence to prevent a third+ break in of our house. He's clearly Afrikaner, and also, clearly out of his mind. The conversation began with him asking me what courses I was taking I told him a Pan African history course, Xhosa (which was meant with some resentment), and an African instruments course. This third one really piqued his interest, and he began to tell me about how he has always wanted to learn how to play the marimba. Also he said, "You know you can make these with your hands? The blacks do this all the time." The way he said "blacks," the intonation, really set off some alarms that I was dealing with a man who certainly grew up under apartheid and has yet to change his opinions. So I respond with a respectfully South African "Is it?" Then he begins to tell me that under South African law, because I have been taught how to play marimba I can go into the "the rural areas, the black areas" and teach children. But he wasn't done, no, nowhere near done. He began to then tell me why they need to learn how to play instruments, the most pressing reason they need to learn is because... "the Xhosa, they are lazy buggers"... They simply want to be laborers and if they learned to play drums and xylophones, they could work on the street corners. "The Zulu are the only ones, they can make strech a skin and make shields and spears." Now I'm really shaking my head, the assumption he just made was that black Africans are only suitable to work on street corners, weapon makers, and as laborers. But he continues on about how if you go to Kenya or Seychelles (of all African countries...Seychelles?) "blacks playing these funny little instruments with their mouths." He now put his hands to his mouth in an attempt to pantomime these little instruments the Kenyans and Seychellois play in a most humorous manner. So I let him continue on his racist rant for a while. Finally he asks where I'm from? Eh? America? Oh well I just bought some books from America. Books on how to make artificial rocks. Let me show you my rocks. Then he pulls out his phone and shows me rocks and African masks he has made. When I ask if he made the African masks, he said yes, he bought one wooden one from the markets downtown and turned into a mold for other masks he would make out of "fiberglass cement." He plans to hire 2-3 blacks to sell these downtown. He told me.
His next rant was about the books on artificial rocks and how he managed to procure them. It was a real hassle, and they were expensive he mentioned. When I asked him why he didn't order them online, he told me that he doesn't use a credit card(this was a sign of things to come). Okay, why don't you use a bank card? He was convinced you would need to give a company your pin number and they would continually withdraw money from your account if you bought anything online. I suggested he watch his account for fraudulent activity, he told me you can't buy things online with bank cards. Okay, crazy. Then he told me about his bank card woes.
Apparently in SA, when you put money in the bank, they take out money, when you take it out, they take out money, and when you let it sit in the bank, they take out money. So according to him, this really screws the pensioners. His next point was wholly based on logic and hard fact. After going on about how criminal the banking system in SA is he let me know that, "You know, these crazy Terminator movies are just a sign of what's going to happen. Cameras everywhere. There is going to be all these haves and have nots. There will probably be a war." Not to mention this isn't what Terminator is about at all, this is one of the craziest things I've ever heard. His evidence for all this is the fact that there are surcharges at ATMs and administration fees in SA banks. Ridiculous. But he continued, "In America, they don't even use money any more. It's all online. These top 12 guys in the world aren't stupid. That's why they made the Euro. It's only in like 4-5 countries right now, but soon its going to be the world currency. And then we'll just be online with Euro credits. Then it'll happen with the petrol, BP and Shell will join together." This man was truly a lunatic. I finally decided to I had to leave before I started laughing at this guys wildly erratic behavior, and just told him he was painting a pretty grim picture for the future. He left me with a "Stay in school, kid" Okay, he didn't say the kid part. But I wish he had. I hope this makes up for my lack of posting. Maybe I'll try to post again soon.
