T.I.A.

I have an innate distrust of catchy slogans. Things put so simply are rarely true. They allow no room for nuance. M & Ms totally DO melt in your hand. Covergirl doesn't connote "easy" or "breezy" to me. Yet there's a recurring theme this semester that's brief and catchy and yes, manages to cover most of the horrific, hilarious and odd situations you're likely to run across in this country. During the Garden Route Tour this week, while on Tokyo-Sexwale township tour, after our tour guide shared a bit too much about his past, a girl muttered, "TMI."

"TIA," another American responded.

T.I.A. = This Is Africa. Basically it means "don't be surprised; anything goes here, since this place is car-azy!" or something. It's one of those lovely phrases that can be used anywhere, anytime, in either a positive or negative way. Oh, fried caterpillars? TIA. $3 dinners? TIA! (Side note: the dollar is getting weaker, at a mere R9.4/dollar. Tear.)

And "TIA" was perfect for our township tour outside of Jeffrey's Bay, where we spent the last two nights of our vacation. Our tour guide, Cass, started us out with a visit to a guy's home where we drank tea and ate bread. The tomato jam was surprisingly tasty. Then we went to a medicine woman who, Cass said, had been given healing powers from her ancestors. Though these days she's seeing only five patients a week since most in the townships go to doctors, he said she's even worked wonders with AIDS patients. He showed us some pink powder, which was supposed to make one "shine"; "shining", apparently, means able to be taken seriously by white people. I wonder if you can buy that in Stellenbosch...

Then he proceeded to tell us, in excruciating detail, about his circumcision procedure. In Xhosa culture, males at 18 get circumcised by an older male (read: not someone medically trained). Ouch. Then he started talking about his "papa", which turned out not to be his father. Additionally, there were Zuma posters throughout the township, which turned out to be sort of a joke: since Zuma is Zulu, he's uncircumcised and, as the Xhosa see him, still a boy. "We can't let a BOY run the country," Cass explained.

When we toured his house (a corrugated shack he proudly proclaimed he'd built himself) and he asked if we wanted to see his bedroom (the corner of the room), we said yes. Interesting enough. Then he just had to tell us, "This is where the magic happens", pointing at the small pink bed, while we tried futilely to keep gross mental images out of our heads. Of course, it didn't help that he'd pointed out his girlfriend five minutes earlier, an especially heavy woman in bright pink. Cass, by comparison, was stick-thin. And also, more than comfortable telling perfect strangers where he'd conceived his first two children.

We went to two shebeens (bars) where we attempted to drink away the information of the last couple hours. We'd at first gone into a shack where an 8-year-old girl (labor laws?) had poured us a paint can of Xhosa beer, umgomboti. Nevermind the fact that we'd seen beer fermenting in the backyard of a nearby shack with several chickens -- sometimes it's better to just not think about these things -- this beer was thick (no way you could see the bottom of that can) and kind of had random particles and bugs in it. The group of Americans smiled politely and, when Cass turned his back, made disgusted faces at each other, practically imploring, "just how are we supposed to drink this?"

My best friend when I was growing up was from a Cajun family, and so I went to plenty of crawfish boils. I was a picky kid -- I used to hate tomato sauce, so I just ate noodles when we had spaghetti -- and though I loved going to her house, I dreaded eating dinner there. 4:00 snacks were fine, and to this day I have a special fondness for Little Debbie cakes, but once 6:00 rolled around, the trouble began. The problem with them was, it was never just macaroni and cheese or tacos. It was always something weird and spicy, and I had to finish the overloaded plate with minimal (but preferably no) gagging and complaints. My mom actually is quite talented at this (something she'll blame on her poor upbringing), and I'd always swear she enjoyed dinner until later, when she'd wonder how people from Louisiana could eat such odd things. I was rarely successful at finishing the contents of my plate, and usually made up some lie about having eaten dinner already. Still, it's just a matter of politeness, polishing off food that's presented to you, no matter how disgusting the fare. The same with this beer.

The paint can went around the group of Americans, and, ignoring what I hoped were rocks below the surface, I took a swig. Well, a sip. A small sip. It was bitter and smoky, leaving one with the strange sensation of having consumed liquified bacon. Delicious? In one rotation, the contents of the paint can looked unchanged, and Cass was aghast: "Wait... is everyone drinking? This will f*&# you up, you know" as if assuring drunkenness was enough for us to overcome its offensive taste. We looked around, frightened. What next? A drinking game? Was he going to apportion the rest to each of us (accountability)? Finally, one of the group, Bridget (with clear Irish ancestry), squeezed her eyes shut and chugged a little more with the help of Jackie, who held her nose closed. She claimed that not being able to taste most of the beer was a big help.

Cass ended up finishing most of the beer.

And the informative part of the township tour was over, as it launched into bar hopping. I did learn, however, that townships serve 40s (about two or three times the size of a normal cider bottle) for the same price of a normal bottle, R15. Sweet. Somehow, we all made it back relatively unscathed.

The rest of the week was nice -- I saw the Indian Ocean and went to beaches, fulfilling my lifelong dream of reading a book on the beach. Since I was kind of limited in the amount of activities I could do, I had a relaxed vacation for once; this was kind of a foreign idea to me, since vacations with the family are usually kind of stressful. And also, the horses the group used for horseback riding turned out to be crazy and not tame. And the bungee jumping? Most reactions seemed positive, and the bungee company's slogan ("Fear is temporary; regret is forever") has now been adopted by several as their life mantra.

We also visited several ecologically artificial wildlife parks, Teniqua and Monkeyland. Teniqua, as we saw in the orientation video complete with an especially cheesy easy-listening version of "A Whole New World", is all about animals who "have known only human kindness" (translation: have been raised in the park to allow humans to pet them without biting their heads off). The cheetahs were pretty, the caracal was awesome and I attempted to pet a baby cheetah with about the same degree of success that I can dance, play the trumpet and avoid awkward conversations: none. He ran away from me, probably sensing that my five-week-old Beta fish had committed suicide just years earlier. (I'm sorry, Harry!)

Monkeyland was a "refuge" for monkeys from zoos and injured ones in the wild. I learned a few things: monkeys are like children and enjoy taking things from people, looking up at a monkey and smiling is a cue for said monkey to urinate, I'm still scared of suspension bridges.

The accommodation was nice, if by "nice" you mean that I'm going to be way less maintenance upon returning to the States. I don't even use a blow dryer these days! We stayed at several backpackers which turned out to be cabins in the woods four minutes away from the bathroom. Who knew Africa could be so cold at night?

I know when people go study abroad, within weeks they're proclaiming, "I'm so in love with [insert country here] right now!" or pledging allegiance to the beautiful/intelligent/kind/wonderful people of whatever nation. For me, I guess my fondness for South Africa has been slowly evolving over the course of the semester. I definitely was a little culture-shocked at first, and constantly, but I think I can say I love the place. Of course, this is "love" the way I imagine it to be with a person: you know he has flaws and bowel movements, perhaps he doesn't look so good in a bathing suit and forgets to put more than two ice cubes in your drink, maybe his political leader has been accused of 783 counts of corruption. But you still find his gap-toothed smile adorable and hope that he's not going to hell.

Please read: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1165473/He-wives-faced-783-corruption-charges-PETER-HITCHENS-South-Africas-president.html