Today, sadly enough, seemed a little less amazing. Maybe the thrill of novelty wore off. Kinda like how by the second day of my safari, it was no longer "Oooo! Look!" and more of "Oh. Another giraffe." Or maybe it's simply because I've been cranky and tired all day. More staff training. More games. And a BBC video about the camp that made me cry. The day was saved though, by a fabulous conversation with Sideshow Bob, one of the South African counselors. Bob told me about South Sutu culture. Most interesting to me was the practice of putting prices on your daughters that's still current today. If Bob was to meet a girl he wanted to marry, he'd have to "buy" her from her family before he could do it, which is the complete opposite of every other culture I can think of where the woman's family pays a dowry to the man who wants to marry her. Despite the patriarchal nature of African societies, perhaps African women have an almost stronger role because they must be bought. Granted, that smacks of slavery, but having a price on your head for your hand in marriage is still a step up from your parents paying someone to take you away - which is pretty much what a dowry is. In fact, in Africa, if you get a girl pregnant and decide not to marry her, you have to pay her family for the "damage".
Even more jarring was the realization that its not just the campers here who are from the inner city, but many of the counselors as well. I found out over dinner today that Wayan never met his father. He doesn't even know who his father is. Him, his brother, and his sister all have different fathers, and this is a common scenario in African culture. Because it's so prevalent, it doesn't carry the same social stigma that it does in Western culture. I don't know why it was so startling for me to hear Wayan tell me that. But I suppose there's a difference between knowing a fact and seeing it. So many assumptions are made on a daily basis that the people you meet are similar to you. I found out tonight that Bob's mother as well is a single mother of two - also from different fathers. As Bob is one of my favorite people so far, it was a little strange to hear that he comes from such a dramatically different background. Besides being relatively good looking and funny, he also hasn't ever gone to college, doesn't have a job, and is 22. Yes, I'm finally getting old enough that there exist "younger men" over the age of 21. He's even younger than my ex boyfriend. Like most girls, I caught myself dilly-dallying down a path of daydreaming in which we dated and he came to visit me in the U.S. I realized quickly that it'd be a Sweet Home Alabama sort of situation, except I wouldn't move to South Africa to be with my down-home sweetheart. Bob is very cute and attractive at camp in South Africa, but I have no qualms that placing him in a New York or Philadelphia setting would be bizarre. Though I think my friends would be impressed by his good looks, I have to conclude 2 days after meeting him that sadly - we are never meant to be together. He has that strange boyish appeal I was attracted to back when I was 15. I'm surprised at the reversion to prior "types". Since then, I've developed a taste for solid manly bodies. One with a bit of heft. I'd rather have a man with a paunch than a skinny boy.
Many Africans believe that worms live in the condoms, or that they're too small to fit. So, during counselor training, each group was given a condom, and we were told to fill it with whatever we wanted - leaves, twigs, water, or in our case, air. Washington shows exactly how big a condom can get.
