In my life thus far, I have only stepped off American soil three times. The first time was at 14 years old, when I went to Nigeria for 2 months, staying in my father’s home; the second time was when I went to Denmark for my school’s IB international exchange program, where I lived with a Danish family; and now, thirdly, this Yale study abroad experience in South Africa. All this is to say, I have never had a “normal” tourist experience where I stay simply to visit a country for a few days and depart. I am lucky enough to have had the opportunity to live with locals for extended periods of time and immerse myself in cultures.
I know it’s only been a bit more than a week here in South Africa, but I feel like I have had a hard time immersing myself in “South African” culture. In contrast, Denmark is quite homogeneous. It’s easier to come to a conclusion about what it means to be Danish; they have a shared language, phenotype, and defined concepts such as Hygge. Nigeria was familiar. It’s my roots, my culture. Despite Nigeria’s indisputable ethnolinguistic diversity, I have been raised with an idea of what it means to be “Nigerian.”
Consequently, I think part of me expected that when I travel, culture would always be “something legible” — something I would be able to explain to my family and friends when I got home as something defined and rigid. But with each minute I spend here, I am realizing the stupidity of my own ignorance. South Africa is a composition of stories lost, stories revived, stories of resilience, stories that cannot simply be translated, and stories I may honestly never be able to understand.
I can translate the word “Amandla,” but I can never know the weight of that word on my tongue. I can taste the finest Cape Malay curry, and it may give me deja vu of something I’ve tasted before, but it won’t transport me back “home.”
I noticed that when asked about South Africa, I describe the accents as something that feels like a mix of Australian, British, and Indian. I say that with each step, it feels like I am entering a new nation: one leg in Portugal and the other in California. I say that they drive on the left like the British. I keep using other nations, ones that are familiar, as the measure by which I describe South Africa. But why can’t I describe South Africa as something that stands alone? While having a reference point for other people without first-hand experience can be important, I think this idea of having a reference point to describe it to others has affected how I personally perceive South Africa.
I could say that Cape Malay food is Malaysian food simply within South Africa, or I can recognize that it is a unique food that arose out of a unique history. I could continue searching for familiar reference points, but in doing so, I will continue to flatten the very complexity that makes this Rainbow Nation what it is.
Cape Town is revealing the limitations of the lens through which I have always approached travel, searching for the familiar, the knowable, and the easily defined. But my experience here is only emphasizing that not every culture is meant to be understood through comparison. I feel like I’m not gonna leave South Africa being able to say: this is what South Africa is or is like! That would be an inherently incomplete answer. But I know that I’ll be able to leave South Africa, saying, “This is what South Africa taught me.”