Day 6: Saterdag

Saturday. A boerseun best day of the week. Usual saturday’s in Afrikaans culture will be made out of the following:

• A braai
• Meat (chops is a must)
• Boerewors
• Braai Broodjies
• Potato Salad
• Family
• Some Kasteeltjies (castle lager beer)
• Klippies en coke ( met eish ja)

En dan gaan ons nou braai. Lets just finish watching the rugby first. Rugby would go as follows

• Asking the wife to get the snacks and bring the drinks coming
• Standing proud while the negational anthem starts, only to sing, vole bors. UIT DIE BLOU VAN ONSE HEMEL.
• Thats when the goosebumps start and kick off
• During the game there will be strong verbal arguments with the referee, how dirty the opposition is, and basically the whole rugby game would be rewritten since every afrikaner has a professional career in the game.

En dan gaan ons nou braai.

Sadly i could not partake in the Saturday shenanigans since I was attending the funeral.

A much more morbid them it was, held at an old age him win Vrede. The afrikaans culture is strongly evident. It is conservative and tradition is strong. I really feel sorry for the people there, they have lived a good life and now basically just waiting for the end of their journey. As I walked in the hall, I felt a sense of heaviness descending on my heart, old eyes that seen lots of live calling out, staring right through me. The NG Dominee, starts the proceedings, with a common themes in many sermons like the struggle in our lives that we need to overcome, the guilt we have, our aspirations in the world, gathering earthly things seemed to be obsolete when it comes to death. Its rather a depressing memorial, like most traditional funerals. She was a good person, and lived her life serving others. A big loss to our family, but its better for her no more pain and suffering. RIP

What i have noticed about this strong afrikaans event, is that I would rather want people to celebrate my life, mourn quickly and remember me, miss me but celebrate life. Religion plays a big role in afrikaner’s lives it comforts them, it gives hope and it helps to move through our trial and tribulations. It is one of the cornerstones of the traditional afrikaner.

Day 4: Dors op n Donderdag

It has been such a busy  last couple of days, with tight deadlines and test schedules to meet, I must be honest, theres not much time to actually worry about what you look like. Our lives are so fast paced and we often loose sight of the important things in life. The little things that we can celebrate after every day, the things that make life worth living, those magic moments that eventually becomes wonderful memories. With all these worries clouding my vision i become extremely frustrated. So one thing i am going to let go is the thought of people judging gem for who I am… or at least represent.

By listening RSG while driving kind of just make matters worse since I find that Afrikaans media is definitely not inline to who i am. The one radio show i listened to went on about the church and Christianity, like traditional afrikaners would do followed by phone calls wishing close relatives and friends happy birthday, this seemed to have gone on for at least 20 minutes. I don’t really know what the presenters job entails and every caller goes on to how they know him so well. He of coarse has no idea of who the callers are and needs to play it cool and be polite and respectful like good afrikaners do. Oom and Tannie is imperative. I am by no means against the christian faith and good manners and values. I just find it so typical afrikaans. Afrikaans people enjoy knowing that other people know them. It probably gives them a sense of belonging. They are usually rathe friendly and polite head on, but don’t always be fooled, some of them have a nasty alter ego from the polite friendly lady that goes to church every sunday. I am of coarse generalising and stereotyping quite a bit here, but I’m trying to make a point and how i feel i have been seen. I also need to vent slightly.

The thing that strikes me the most was probably the fact that some lecturers ask that if i am doing an intervention. Duh… as if I always dress like this. They should know me by now… Then as soon as i speak, all doubt is removed since i have an afrikaans accent which removes all possible doubt and I officially represent the classic afrikaner look. This is too close to home for me. In just a couple of days people thought that this is who i am. At least my intervention is somewhat successful.

This obviously relates to performativity.

Performativity (butler 1997) is ritualized on going process that constitutes an indiiduals identity. The idea of performativity is different from the physical act of a performace, as its is not a singular exhibition involving actors on stage for limited amount of time, but a continuous social process. This also has a close resemblance to the concept of myth, both concept involve ideology and how it is masked by rituals. That actually hide the underlying structures of ideological interpellation

So in layman’s terms. The more I look and act like a boer, the more those concept and representation comes to live and is experienced as something real, with the set believe systems associated with that particular representation.

This creates a persona, just like an artist will create something that will shock people.

The highlight of my day must have been when I saw a good friend of mine from the free state, a classic afrikaner boerseun. He actually dress just the way they do. First thing he says to me. Sjoe, maar jy lyk netjies… Performance done… I am now the character…

We went out that night, had a couple of beers like real men do and spoke about farming, politics and how we plan to braai for the rugby this coming weekend.

Butler, J. (1997). Excitable Speech: A politics of the performative. New York: Routledge.

Day 3: Patriarchy and Boeremeisie

While on the way home yesterday I stared contemplating what these short shorts mean. So I did some research and found an interesting blog from the Engelsman in Afrika, he writes about boer attire here. http://kevdieenglesman.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/boer-attire-the-lowdown/

According to Engelsman in Afrika in Boer Attire: The Lowdown. He found that and I quote “Moving southwards to the shorts, or ‘kort broek’. This item of the boer uniform can be described as ‘tight-fitting’ and little more than ‘minimalist’ in nature, displaying expansive portions of a boer’s thigh sections. It is rumoured that Alpha boer males will display more thigh flesh than their Beta male counterparts, however the statistical population which I have studied has delivered inconclusive results to confirm this fact. It is true however that the boere use thigh exposure to attract mates. To the boeremeisies dat kom van Bloemfontein af (and other similar boere strongholds), the sight of a man’s exposed (and possibly hairy) thigh is irresistible. Traditional shorts colour is again khaki, however to hide pee stains, which are extremely noticeable whilst wearing khaki, a wider variety of colours are available, ranging from forest green to navy blue. Like the shirt, boer shorts would never feature on an episode of Fashion TV.”

So my thigh muscles will be directly related on how much of a man I am and how many females I get. Too bad I don’t fill those as much. It all makes sense to me now, why my boet said I should rather wear long pants, at least that way I can still have some form of masculinity left and some chase with the boeremeisie.

This being said, I do have become somewhat more patriarchal in my views. It might be due to subconscious ideology that I am not particularly aware of as yet, or maybe my natural boer instinct are just kicking in. To provide for family and self, food, shelter, protection. I also felt a slight sense of pride for an instant followed by shame shortly after.

I even switched to Radio Sonder Grense (RSG) so that I can awaken my inner boer culture and maybe pick up on the latest agricultural trends from the Landbou Weekblad

Boer Attire: The Lowdown

Patriarchy and Boeremeisies

Engelsman in Afrika

‘Boer’ (noun; plural – Boere) is the Afrikaans word for ‘farmer’. Although the use of the word in its traditional sense leans more towards a reference to the white Afrikaans male farmer, I believe that the word can be applied to all manner of ‘farmer’ and is irrelevant of colour and race. Phewff…racial and cultural minefield avoided! Proceed to next level.

This post pays references the word ‘Boer’ in its more traditional sense and concentrates specifically on the clothing worn by staunch Afrikaans Boere men. If you can imagine back to caveman days, your local Truworths equivalent probably had very little in the way of choice when it came to clothes. They may have gone as far as to cater for separate departments for men and women, however there are restrictions to what can be done with a loincloth, leaves and animal fur clothing. Bearing this in mind, a caveman…

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Day 2: Ekonoom met n Droom

Earlybird gets the worm or so they tell me. I know it is a strongly related fact that a boerseuns must get up in the morning otherwise you are lazy, and lazy just won’t cut it in this uniform. So I got up a bit earlier to make sure I get to my student tut on time. I shouldn’t be nervous about it but for some reason I am slightly. It must be my outfit for today. As I meet the first year student I immediately become self conscious about my free code and who I am representing. The girl has a surfer kind of look to her. Binary opposites comes to my mind. Nerves start to tremble. Anyways get these thought out your head. I am here to work… as time went on it became easier and I felt more comfortable. I guess it wasn’t so bad, off to a good start, challenging but good, at least she know that we doing the intervention.

This challenge made my day somewhat easier. I racked up the courage to go to the cafeteria for lunch. Something bothered me though. The cleaning lady looked at me but it was more of a death stare or at least it felt like that. Surrounded by a diverse society in such an enclosed space like the cafeteria. I instantly felt exactly like the stereotyped prejudice I portray, so I kept to the side and waited until my smoked chicken health roll is done.

The latest in developments to me was actually how exposed my legs are. I am quite insecure about my calves, tall people are either blessed or not, unfortunately I was not blessed in the calve department. Another area I feel uncomfortable, there must be a positive in this. I always wondered what it was with the afrikaans boer seuns exposing so much of their leg. Even south african rugby traditional is a mainly afrikaans sport ad the classic PT shore or t-savs have become iconic amongst the afrikaners. My brother, who is very much aligned with this look, has clearly stated even if I were to wear that in the acceptable Free State, they would still rather suggest a long jean pant…

I never knew that I could become so self conscious of previous non-issued things in my life. It seems that the next couple of days could be really interesting…

Day 1: Hoe lyk dit ouens…

I must be honest, this has challenged me immensely already even before getting into the outfit. I woke up at 04:00 this morning with anxiety and couldn’t easily go back to sleep. I feel that I have built a strong identity through my years living in Durban, and my perception about my reputation and what people think of me obviously plays a bigger role in my life than what I initially thought.

Thoughts running through my mind of how I will be judged, and then trying to rationalise it to soften the impact didn’t really help much. I dreaded getting up, but in the end swallowed my pride and went for it.

I was on the way to Johnson’s Workwear Depot this morning to get that classic two tone shirt, everything else was pretty much fine while still being in my ordinary cloths. I walk in like mr. Durban until I fitted the shirt and immediately started feeling self conscious.

I changed in the car, putting my new steamy farmer short pant on… followed by the collared khaki green two tone shirt. Since I was still in the car and nobody could actually see me I felt rather at ease, but increasingly anxious. I was ready for my new uncomfortable 10 day adventure to start, until my phone rang. It was Tessa. the lady that I work under at Tyson Properties. This is obviously an important phone call since we are in the process of selling a penthouse in Umhlanga which I have the keys for. “Please could you come drop the keys at the office” she said. Stuttering, I try to get out of it by saying that I’m on the way to varsity, but I could hear that this was urgent. How can I go into the office looking like that, my whole professional image destroyed in one day, and it is just the start of this brief. It doesn’t even relate closely to the office dress code. Tessa have made it clear before that when I go into the office I MUST wear a lang broek. No I have to walk in with an extra short short pant with 2 skinny white legs dangling out of the gigantic holes of them. I could never…

Instantly I felt uncomfortable, uneasy and frustrated, I started sweating and got angry. Not a positive start to my week and it basically took blou maandag to another level. I had to make a plan, phoned my mom, and asked her to drop the keys at the office, I just couldn’t get myself to do it.

On the way to Varisty I felt slightly better since I knew that the attention would be on everyone, since we are all in the same boat. I quickly snuck in made my way up the stairs, trying not to see too many people and slipped into our small class. There were some giggles, but nothing major, my class is actually quite understanding. I spent the whole day in the same class room between lectures. At lunch time I didn’t even go to the cafeteria because obviously it would be too busy. So decided that I won’t eat lunch and just wait until I get home, hopefully not starved to death.

I tell you know, its no fun. I feel super self conscious about what I look like and more so what i represent. The stereotyped image I portray in my mind keeps replaying like a stuck record as I literally sweat bullets due to anxiety.

Boertjie Pants

 

Boertjie Shirts

I have to tutor a 1st year economics student tomorrow morning. I have not met her before. First impressions as a boerseun… Definitely concerned…