Walk with me

[The following excerpt is taken from my research journal, May 9, 2008]

Walk with me down the streets of Pinetown and Durban, KwaZulu Natal, a province more impacted by the AIDS epidemic than any other in the world, and you will see rolling hills, lush foliage, birds, monkeys and other wildlife unimaginable to American or Canadian suburban life. In a small suburb of Durban, Pinetown houses the University of KwaZulu Natal’s Edgewood campus, which is dedicated entirely to the Faculty of Education. Here, pre-service teachers linger around the scenic sidewalks, resting places, dining areas and classrooms. Students are predominately black, Indian, and a few whites of European descent. The Centre for Visual Methodologies is one room housed in the Department of Language, Literacies, Media and Drama Education in Wing 5, 2nd floor. With a back view of campus, a conference table, part-time administrator/ coordinator, and three available computer stations, the centre serves as a quasi-storage facility of media collected by researchers/students/professors involved in the projects, programs, and publications that have resulted from years of arts-based methodologies addressing the HIV/AIDS crises confronting their community, the communities of their students, and the greater region of KwaZulu Natal. Additionally, this space provides the forum for impromptu meetings, workshops, and important student advisement.

As I walk the hallways in between work sessions, I am confronted by waves of discourse reentering my mind from prior discussions with my colleagues here. I hear them saying: "...one out of four students in the rural schools are infected with HIV;" "...infection statistics of university students are unknown, though we’ve lost students every semester to AIDS;" "...violence affects all of us (professors, students, staff, and community members")"...my son was nearly beaten to death...my son was carjacked, but managed to escape...my son was mugged and forced to go to an ATM and withdrawal 1000Rand (about $125US)" "...carjackings, muggings, physical and sexual assaults are prevalent;" "...the violence here is just apart of everyday life." Their messages and urgent inflections resonate within me after my first few days here. Just as AIDS affects all of us, my new friends tell me, we are all affected by violent crime. Obfuscated by this living history of criminality, I inquire as to what or who they believe to be the driving forces, upon which many hesitantly reveal the culprits: the poor, the desperate, and the angered who lack education and social mobility.

Though many western countries share similar racial and class disparities, South Africa faces a political economy of contradictions. Despite the rise of a post-apartheid black government and the implementation of radical affirmative action policies, unemployment rates primarily affecting black males remain a staggering 23%, down 7.4% in the prior five years as of the government’s September 2007 Labor Force Survey (See page 10 of: http://www.statssa.gov.za/PublicationsHTML/P0210September2007/html/P0210September2007.html). All of this I am learning behind cement brick walls - some lined with electrified wiring, barbwire, motorized gates, caged windows, and two or more guard dogs peering through the spaces in between. These are the uncertain realities of a culture of fear walking with me down the streets and university hallways of KwaZulu Natal.