diversity

America knows diversity. Since second grade I've sung praises of the "melting pot," the most grossly overused metaphor in American history; I stand facing our flag and prostrate my identity to this prayer of indivisibility in unity of difference; I travel the country and see people of different languages, some with heavy dark wool itching their necks and others gliding and sweating under transparent bright silks, I see fishing villages without fences to separate neighbours and I've lived in apartments where I did not know who lived in the flats beside me, I've tasted hot greasy apple doughnuts from an orchard in Massachusetts and iced milky horchata in jumbo styrofoam cups from a stand in Los Angeles. America knows diversity. But it has never known diversity as concentrated and congealed as this country knows diversity.

We talk about race openly. Half the students at University are white. Half are black or coloured. Yes, there is a differentiation between black and coloured here, black versus lighter-skinned black, markers created by apartheid but are still used as labels today because we need those labels to understand the way the economic, political and social strata are arranged here. There are Indians, Malays, Xhosa, Zulu, Africans from Ivory Coast, Congo, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Namibia, Kenya, Uganda. Colours are different. Facial features are different. Religious beliefs, accents, styles of dress, music, all are different. A black African from the DRC is an entirely different person from a black African from Jo-burg. There are people who evade all attempts at labeling, like a fabric dipped in 5 or 6 dyes, colours bleeding in the center, colours collecting in the corners, and others remaining untouched. Where does America know this great collection of skin colour and culture so intermeshed? My high school had not one black girl in my graduating class. We had one Asian, a Vietnamese girl who most everyone peered at curiously but avoided. We were all white, rich, straightened hair with highlights, sporting our Uggs with our plaid kilts. How does a strict culture like this allow for the incorporation of novelty?

Of course, I am being a harsh judge on my country because there are strict divisions here that evade disruption. The division between townships and white surburbia is just one harsh example of South Africa's struggle to break down fences and ideologies. I have, however, never had the opportunity before to dance with so many beautiful black men and be seen as beautiful in return, to not be judged as white or rich or American. I have never had the opportunity to share my apartment with a woman from Zimbabwe who belts gospel music every morning, or a man from Jo-burg who is the biggest diva, frustrated when his instant coffee doesn't have enough sugar (he adds about 5 spoonfuls), or when his fingers will not form Mozart's Don Giovanni on his viola. I can walk 15 minutes from my flat and buy fresh seed bread, or clear plastic packets of shortbread or pistachios. I can walk 5 minutes from my flat and enjoy a bunny chow, a scooped out loaf of bread filled with buttered chicken curry (a hidden curry spot that even Oprah has enjoyed). I can walk 10 minutes from my flat to the train station and hop on a train going towards the beach where I can find surfers or Jewish delis. Or I can walk 5 minutes from my flat and catch a minibus heading downtown for only R5 and dance in my seat to the house music they're playing and then get off downtown, walk 15 minutes to de Waterkant, and taste the most supreme coffee I've ever known.

This is what I came here for. This diversity and a culture and community actively engaging in a transformation from segregation to integration.