A hand on my knee

When he placed his hand firmly on my knee for the second time, after my skillful maneuvering to remove it only moments before, I had an inkling that things were not going to end well. The little boy that had been relegated to the flatbed portion of the truck despite plenty of room in the cabin was no longer a buffer and we…we were driving through the bush far off the clay-packed ruts that passed for a road. 

The driver stopped the truck, the suddenness of it jerking me forward in my seat, and told me he couldn’t take me the rest of the way. More angry than scared in that moment, with the thorny bushes poking through my skirt and the sun beating down on my head, I cursed him. I cursed him as I walked several kilometers to the school I was visiting nestled in the hill I’d been deposited on.

Earlier, when he had stopped to ask me if I needed a ride, he seemed vaguely familiar. He was someone from the expansive village that was to be my Peace Corps home for two years. That he recognized me immediately was no surprise, everyone knew me - not-quite-leghowa (white person/foreigner) but definitely not local- I was destined to be known and  to never know everyone. 

When he'd slowed down and pointed out the shops he owned in the village, smiled and acknowledged my host family, and then offered me a ride, I jumped at the chance to shorten my commute and get to know someone from my community better. The cutie in the front seat, staring in the curious way all of the children in the village stared at me, sealed the deal. 

Never mind in America I would never climb in a strange man’s car, small child present or not, in the village context it seemed reasonable. And so I tried to skootch the little one over only to hear him directed to the back of the truck. 

Now we were two. 

The story could have ended so much worse. Rather than walking through the bush with no trail to guide me and arriving late to the school, I could not have arrived at all. 

Rage welled up in me, not fear, although in the coming months the incident would feed my fear. 

Being female has always made me …aware. Wherever I am in the world I understand that there are certain vulnerabilities both real and perceived. I maneuver the world with this in mind; not necessarily at the forefront of my mind but definitely there.

In the early months of my time in South Africa, my vulnerabilities  almost drove me home. More than homesickness and limited resources (no electricity or running water) fear crept into my mind in tiny increments and then with blurring speed. 

Everything in South Africa was new to me. I was fascinated by the newness. Like a small child waving hello to everyone and everything, I wanted to experience my surroundings. Coupled with the fact that while I am a black woman, nothing about me announced me as anything but foreign. So I drew attention. Children stared, women asked if I was a missionary or a student (I always had a book with me), and men proposed. This was my reality on foot, on khumbis (minivan taxis), at the market,  at the local police station.

Even after the newness factor wore itself to normalcy for me, I was still an anomaly in the village, on local transpiration, wherever I went. Reading was often interrupted by questions. Where are you from? Why are you here? What religion are you? Are you married? People greeted me constantly- partly because greeting is a cultural norm and partly because everyone remembers the random leghowa in the village. Everyone remembers and so people were offended if I didn’t remember them form a khumbi ride 6 months ago in a different city. 

There were a lot of questions an comments bred from curiosity and then there was harassment.

Marriage proposals from complete strangers started off funny, I assumed they were excuses to speak to me. But sometimes they weren’t jokes and laughter or a “no thank you” inspired hostility and entitlement. My American-ness posed its own problems. The common assumption about American women is that we are promiscuous. Coupled with the absence of family, I was untethered. I was a sexual object outside the accepted cultural norms of behavior. 

The absence of tethering made it possible for the police at my local police station, to feel me up when I arrived to introduce myself as a safety measure- the irony was not lost on me. That interaction with the police prevented me from calling for help when a khumbi driver in Louis Trichardt felt me up, running his hands from my torso beside my breasts and down to my legs. Those things are what stopped me from doing anything but freezing up inside when a man I met at the Reed Dance Ceremony in Swaziland extended a handshake too long and circled his finger in my palm, refusing to release it, in a common if adolescent request for sex.

Getting banished from the truck in the middle of the bush happened before I experienced most of those other things; back when everything, including harassment, was still new to me. So it didn’t scare me, not the way it scared the teachers at my school I was going to visit. Of course they were scared for different reasons. They were fearful for the American in me. Fearful that I would lose my way or stumble and fall in the bush. Fearful that my delicate Western ways would falter under African conditions. No one mentioned a man’s hand on my knee and neither did I.

About six months into my life in South Africa, with almost two more years before me, I contemplated coming home. 

Sitting on the khumbi in Petersburg, waiting for it to fill and begin the journey back to my village, a man sat beside me and attempted to strike up conversation. I kept my head bowed, pretended to read, pretended to be deaf and unable to feel his hand tapping me lightly on the shoulder. Two hours later, on the last leg of my journey home I relaxed a little. And in relaxing, I realized that same man was on this khumbi. Realized he was someone from my village. Realized he had only been trying to say hello and I had treated him like a ghost – invisible and unwanted. 

Fear had driven me so far from myself, so far from the reason I travel. How could I experience a country if I couldn’t or wouldn’t experience the people? And of course, how do you experience people if you are too wrapped up in fear?

With time I figured out how to navigate my fear. Figured out how to tether myself to my host-family, how to use humor as deflection, how to weave myself into cultural norms instead of floating outside of them. I made friends. I asked questions. I trusted my gut. With time the fear receded into memories, but not the strongest memories of my time in South Africa. Not stronger than Hunadi giving me a bowl filled with homemade biltong when she learned I didn't have any meat at my house, or Naniki sliding through the fence to discuss books, or Mr. Mokopo making me dinner. Not more than my host-mother sticking her finger in my hand-whipped lemon meringue pie to assure me it wasn't cooked yet (it was), or Magajedi laughing at me as I stood on a chair crying about the rat she'd purposely trapped in the kitchen with us.

Fear, like that man’s hand on my knee, was pushed aside and I was left to chart my own path forward.

DailyPost prompt: Safety First