Why I am uncomfortable with "ethnic tourism"

Today while in Hoedspruit I stopped at the tourism center for lunch. This place has a good deli but it is depressingly cheesy. The buildings are sided by faux wood poles and topped by faux straw thatch roofs. The complex has many shops, some of which purport to sell "African" goods, and others, like a jewelry store, that have no direct connection to a place or time, just to tourists' wallets.

When I pulled in I could see some sort of entertainment happening on a patio. It turned out to be 8-10 black men and women dressed in "traditional" African clothing, playing handdrums, singing and dancing. Upon slightly closer inspection it became clear their clothes were not really the animal furs they were meant to imitate, but some cheap faux material. The drums could have come from any music shop. I couldn't tell for sure if the songs were traditional, but I had a strong impression they were not.

I reflected on my aversion to these things. The scene reminded me of the Mayan tourism center Jess and I saw in Mexico and the huge tepees on the sides of roads in some states. My reactions are always mixed. I am embarrassed by the (usually white) audience eating it up. I think of who hires the dancers and, in this case, if that person makes applicants remove their shirts to judge their musculature before offering a job. I wonder how the dancers feel about their jobs and how closely they identify with any local or ethnic traditions. After all, this dance could be done anywhere in Africa to the pleasure of tourists. It was almost like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The finale may as well have included a big black cauldron for a cannibal bit. (I exaggerate...)

But isn't it true that these people are just making a living? That maybe they are not being exploited, but are exploiting the tourists, selling a silly caricature to people who want their preconceptions confirmed? If you can do a song and dance to make some money and live your life, what is wrong with that? To cast the performers as victims of modernity would be to ignore their agency--all the legitimate reasons they have to do what they do.

The reason I'm uncomfortable with these displays is that the entire scene seems to dehumanize the performers and devalue whatever authentic ethnic culture may exist. But I also recognize the "hey, it's a living" aspect.

\end sociology 101 essay

And the picture at the right is kind of pretty but I posted it because it is totally typical of what I've seen here. The place is somewhat poor and sure, traditions and history matter> But a romanticized savage place frozen in time is simply not to be found here.

A poor photo of an elephant

Today I drove to Hoedspruit, about 25km north, for groceries and to get out of the house a bit. The road to Hoedspruit is bordered by private game reserves the entire way. Along that road is where I saw 5 or 6 giraffes on my way to Acornhoek from the airport. Today on my way home I saw some cars pulled over and knew they must be looking at an animal. I slowed down and looked over to see a pack of elephants at a watering hole. By the time I pulled over and got a picture, only one was left, and she/he quickly turned and left. Here is the evidence.

EDIT: Make that a herd or a parade of elephants, not a pack. These distinctions are important, as I believe there is a Jeopardy! category related to this issue.

Happy Birthday!

To my brother Michael (27) and my my brother from another mother, Evan (28).

What the heck am I doing?

Since my blog has gone viral (thanks Mom) and millions of people stream to this site to read my eloquent words, a few have asked what I'm doing and why. Here's a quick overview.

Parts of the developing world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, have very poor systems of vital registration (birth certificates, death certificates, and the government records created by those). Governments, NGOs and other planners need good estimates of vital rates to figure out how to spend limited resources. For example, where will you build the next school? What sort of public health intervention would give you the most bang for the buck and where should you put it? So in the absence of death registration they have turned to national censuses and representative surveys to give them an idea of mortality rates. Examples include the Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) that are run throughout the world and many national censuses, including the one run by StatsSA. In these questionnaires they ask people dates of birth and death for their parents, siblings, children, and other household members. This is called an indirect method of mortality estimation because you do not observe deaths per se, you observe living people's memories of deaths. The answers people give are then more likely to have errors than a database of death certificates would have. And you can get biased results because the chances of dying for any individual are likely correlated to their family members' chances of dying, especially during an AIDS epidemic. It is possible your survey could miss entire households who have died or their survivors have moved somewhere else. So there are some sources of error and bias in these standard questions.

Furthermore, demographers (like me) use these data to estimate mortality rates with special techniques that have been developed in the past 30 years. How well do these techniques work? We are not exactly sure.

So we are conducting a survey using the same types of questions to households located in a demographic surveillance site called Agincourt. (Is your mother alive? When was she born? When did she die? etc.) The Agincourt DSS has tracked the migration, fertility and mortality of a bounded population since 1993. They have unusually high-quality data. We use their data as the "gold standard" of mortality estimates in this place. We will compare our results to their results and see just how much error or bias could be expected from a census or survey in this region.

As for my part in all this? I'm the project site manager for the project. As you probably read below, I am here to coordinate the data collection that is actually carried out by my teams of field workers. The questions are asked in Shangaan, so I am not of any use as far as interviewing. I do provide them with the maps, questionnaires, etc. that they need and I coordinate all the logistical issues that must be coordinated if our study is to have any scientific validity.

This work is related to my dissertation research, so I hope that this data collection will be useful as I try to get a PhD in the next few years. It's also a really interesting professional and personal experience.

I think I can say I would love living around here, actually, if not for the fact that my lovely wife, annoying but sweet dog and all my family were back in the states. So, come for a visit and I'll show you around this place. You have until September 5 to get here. Just don't all come at once, since I can't host the entire Internet in my half of a rented house.

Scenery, plus an outhouse

First day in the field

Today was the long-awaited first day in the field. Here is my friend Erroll, looking quite cheerful while getting ready to ask people about their dead family members.

We had some annoying problems coordinating the transportation for my two teams, so we got into the field around 11 instead of 8 and I drove hundreds of kilometers on dusty, bumpy dirt roads. Here are a few more photos from the day.







































































The thatch-roof hut neighbors my field office. It is probably pretty typical of the houses in this rural area. The rough-looking interior of a house is my field office. And the bull---well, let's just say I had my fair share of dealing with bovines and their leavings today.

Language

There are 11 official languages in South Africa. The local people here in Limpopo province are called Tsonga and they speak Shangaan. I am beginning to learn a few things and I hope to keep building my vocabulary. Avuxeni [ah-vu- SHEN-ee] means good morning, and that is about as far as I have gotten. I expect the fieldworkers will have more respect for me if I am showing effort at communicating in their language. They all read, write and speak English, and many of them speak several additional languages. My unilingualism is tres gauche.

Afrikaans is the language spoken by the Afrikaners and most Coloureds. How quickly a little post about language becomes heavy with the history of apartheid. Coloureds are mixed race people who, as I understand it, did not qualify as "white" under South African law but had more privileges than blacks. From what I've been told, the white minority government's attempt to force all schools to become Afrikaans-only in 1976 led to the Soweto protests, which led to this photo and to the world learning how brutal the white SA regime really was, and eventually the end of apartheid.

The photographer is named Sam Nzimi and he lives within the Agincourt study area. I will be here on 16 June this year for National Youth Day so I'll be interested to see what happens. There is a lot to learn about the history of this place, and it is fascinating. Learn more about the history of the Tsonga here.

Around the house

Izzy's African cousin

There seem to be a lot of rat terriers here. This one is named Shusta and lives in the Wits Rural Facility near my house.

EDIT: Just for comparison's sake...

On the Road

My place and my car

 
 
 
 

Morning commute

This is the dirt road to Agincourt. You can travel about 40km/hr on most of it, but the dust can be terrible.

Wow

What a week. The Principal Investigators from U. Capetown arrived Wednesday and left this morning. We trained the fieldworkers, drivers, supervisors and data typists Thursday and Friday.

I have 12 fieldworkers (they carry out the interviews) in two teams of six, each with one supervisor and one driver. They will go to the 21 remote villages and interview every household. Sound simple? The logistics of this endeavor are so complex that at times I don't know how it will ever happen at all, nevermind on time and under budget. We need to collect 13,000 interviews in just 13 weeks!

I suppose the way to look at this is that I am learning how be an effective manager. Which is nice. But damn it can be frustrating sometimes.

Another map

I created a map with markers for Acornhoek (where I am working for now), Agincourt (the office in the study area), and Ireagh B (the place where my little field office will be). In case you like maps as much as I do.

"A healthier lifestyle"

Interesting article on the slow pace, opportunity, and safety available in parts of Africa today. The America to Africa comparison the subject describes is consistent with what I have seen and felt here so far. This area seems much safer than DC or even parts of Seattle. And no, I do not have a cup holder in my car.

Of course there is also the poverty, suffering and illness here that I will see more of next week. But it's nice to see a mainstream news feature on why Africa is a desirable place to live.

First day of work

Today I went to the the Agincourt Health and Population Unit offices, located in Acornhoek, to do work. I am still trying to verify and debug our data system and I was needed to approve questionnaires and consent forms as they come back from the printers. There is renovation ongoing at the AHPU, so they are currently housed in three mobile units. I met 7 or 8 people and the atmosphere is quite nice. Tea is at 11 in the kitchen, and I introduced myself to quite a few people then.

"Going to the office" in this case means about 20 minutes of driving from Wits Rural Facility where I am living. Half of that is in second gear on narrow dirt roads, the other half on highways. Unfortunately most of my work here requires much longer drives than that. The main office for the survey area is in Agincourt, probably an additional 25 minutes drive (edit: actually 45 minutes). I'll be stopping by that office each week to deliver completed questionnaires to our data typists. I may also use it for access to the internet, phones, and printing as needed. This is because the field office where I will be stationed most days is even farther down the road (edit: an additional 20-25 minutes) and has no phones or internet. They put me there because the annual census of the area will happen concurrently with our study and the Agincourt office is going to be crowded. I'll be in a more rural place very close to Kruger Park. My placement makes it easier for the field teams to reach me if needed. So most days I will be in the car for at least a couple of hours, and perhaps more if I am needed two or three of these offices.

This reminds me that I haven't mentioned the car. I rented a VW Golf Chico. It is cheap, but I have also been told it is one of the best for the roads here. The clearance off the ground is higher than most small cars. It has been interesting getting used to driving on the left side of the road, using my left hand to shift gears, and being on the lookout for large animals and pedestrians most of the time. So far it has gone well, but the more challenging driving will come with my near-daily commute through the bush.

I didn't get to take any pictures today, but maybe I'll put some up tomorrow.

Traveling Joberg-Hoedspruit

 
 
 

Good morning

The sun comes out around 6:30am. Viewed from the back window.

What's for dinner?

Pap, pronounced pup, is for dinner. A data specialist who works for the Agincourt site invited Jeff and me over for dinner tonight. He made chicken, a spicy sauce of tomato, corn, and peppers, and pap. You wash your hands in a bowl of hot water and eat with your hands---actually, your right hand, because your left hand shouldn't touch food. It was delicious! The pap is made sort of like grits. The corn meal (mealy-meal) they use is ground down so much that it is just white with no corn bits left. They add it to hot water, bring to a boil, stir, and put a lid on it. At some point you remove the lid, add more meal, stir, lid, unlid, then stir the heck out of it. At this point it is basically a paste. Stirring is hard work. Cho scooped out slabs of it with a plate, and there you have it. Simple, not at all nutritious (pure empty carbs), but it is cheap, tastes good, and fills you up for a while.

The food was really good and perhaps better was the entertainment from another guest and his comrades from Acornhoek. They are local guys. Smart, sarcastic, teasing, and generally fun to be around. In the time Jeff and I talked to this guy (maybe 90 minutes) we decided to start a basketball team with him, hike in the mountains, go to a strip club and go to his house Friday night for dinner. He, of course, is a much better pap cook than our friend Cho. Also, he mentioned that his friends call him a "douchebag," which was even funnier to me with the local accent. Really a fun night.

Unfortunately I am beat after such little sleep so I'm going to bed early. Tomorrow I'll post today's pictures, which include a beautiful flight, many animals, and general landscape magnificence.

Exotic vs. familiar

Sometimes traveling makes one aware of shocking differences; other times one becomes aware of just how similar things can be across the continents. South Africa is not the most exotic locale in the world for an American. The vestiges of European colonization, urbanization and development make Johannesburg a vital international urban center with many recognizable features. At varying times today I have had two impressions: the first, that differences are small and on the surface. I felt this way taking a cab to the airport, checking in, going to the gate, etc. Sure, they drive on the other side of the road, the gates feel more like an American train station than an airport, and the stores have different names. But I did notice I was having the same interactions with people that are had anywhere else. Unfortunately I don't yet have an ear for the SA accent--accents, really--so conversations are awkward. But they also sell the same stuff and run the same services as anywhere else. There are guys greeting you at the airport who want a big tip for arranging your transport and hotel even though they aren't sanctioned by the airport in Joburg just like there are in Seattle, BWI, New York, and Boston.

My second set of nascent impressions is that things really are different. I watched a bit of the local TV news at breakfast and read the front section of the local paper at the airport. From this small sample, it appears that race permeates most issues. A white farmer sets dogs on an innocent man with colored skin; controversy over the female provincial minister's appointment of an all-male all-white cabinet. Letters to the editor and callers to the TV news reflect passionate party identification and views on race and gender. That in and of itself is not different from the US, but I think some of our politically correct sensibilities might find some of this discourse hard to swallow.

The history of SA is still playing out, including apartheid, race, development and poverty. Being humans living in modern societies, we have a lot in common. But the weight of each place's history plays out differently in every day life.

First day

I arrived at Johannesburg around 9:30pm Thursday night, but of course it was less than 24 hours since I had boarded a 12:55pm flight in Seattle on Wednesday. Customs and baggage claim were a breeze. Then, having no plan for the next 12 hours before my flight to Hoedspruit, I wandered a bit to see what was available in the airport. I ended up taking a free shuttle to a bed and breakfast just a few minutes from the airport, after I had found an ATM with some yet-to-be-known transaction fee and exchange rate.

After arriving at the hotel it took a few minutes for me to get comfortable because I just wasn't sure about this choice of accomodations. I locked all the doors and windows and thought about where I could hide my passport. It seems to be a very legitimate and safe place, however, and the beds are clean, so I soon fell asleep. When I woke about four hours later I felt very rested -- probably because of many hours of unconsciousness on the flight from Amsterdam. The shower was a very welcome feeling after more than 24 hours of travel. Since then I discovered slow wifi in the room and caught up with emails, while my laptop slowly bleeds down to its last hour of power. I need to buy an outlet converter today.

I'm going to breakfast at 6:30 (still more than an hour away!) and then taking the car back to the airport for the 10:15 flight. I am excited to see something in the daylight! I'll take my camera on this plane (and yes it is a plane, not a jet) in case there's a decent view.

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