Sibu Love

Just had an amazing discussion with my roommate Sibu. Sibu is my pink-wearing, shoe-addict, soaps-watching, giggly amazing South African roommate. We were talking about race and inequality in South Africa and he started telling me how he’s from the Eastern Cape, which is one of the poorest regions in South Africa. His father left when he was 2, moved in with another woman from the same community (very scandalous, apparently) and started a new family with her. Growing up, Sibu had to watch his father’s new children get new fancy clothes and go to private school while his siblings couldn’t even afford books or decent clothes. He is really resentful of his father and when I asked said, “That bastard is dead, thank god.” I wrote in an earlier post about the huge chronic problem of absent fathers and single mother households in African communities. Sibu and his 6 siblings were raised by his grandmother, who apparently is a force to be reckoned with. His grandmother’s marriage was arranged for her when she was 16 years old. She went walking to fetch water and was kidnapped by 5 men who then took her to live at her in-laws, according to custom. She believes deeply in education and wanted to be a teacher but couldn’t because she had to be a wife and mother at such an early age. So she always pushed education on her children and her grandchildren, whom she single-handedly raised on a government pension (a pension that she walked 3 hours to get). Sibu and I both agree that women are unbelievably strong….

Sibu’s community is so poor, many people have resorted to alcoholism or prostitution just to cope. He is one of two men from his community that go to college and he is the only person in his family to have gone to college. So when he goes back home he says everyone is so curious about college life. He is a Social Work major because he wants to effect some kind of positive change in the social climate. He was talking about how much he hates school but how much is riding on him. He wanted to drop out and become a police officer but I convinced him that its important to have a degree as a safety net- it opens up your options and its something that will always follow you. He threw the police officer application across the room and then started laughing- haha. Love this dude.