Date: Mon, July 28, 2003
Subject: How the Xhosa people in S.A. view sex (part 1)
OK, I know I have been jumping around tons and I still haven’t explained the apartheid but I will get to that soon. First I wanted to let all of you, who are dying to know, what is going on with the Purely Committed Banquet. First of all, if you don’t know what Purely Committed is you will want to see our website at www.purelycommitted.com. Basically it is a group I started in college to encourage college-age women to save sex for marriage. We coordinate events and have held three banquets with celebrity speakers. Two were in California and one was in Louisiana and now here I am in South Africa coordinating the fourth Purely Committed event.
The event here in Cape Town will be on August 9th and it will invite about 180 of Philippi’s youth to hear about the message of abstinence until marriage. This event will really need to be bathed in prayer; start now, the challenge is even greater then what we face in the US. The Xhosa culture views sex, love, and marriage very differently yet abstinence is really something they need to be introduced to because it is a choice that really does make the difference between life and death.
It is hard to focus on just the issue of sexual promiscuity and its connection with the spread of AIDS because there are so many other social and economical issues that are really tied into everything else. It is very complex so please bear with me. It may seem scattered but you will see how everything affects each other and how huge the issues really are.
OK, where to start…well, as I have explained the unemployment rate is very high here. 8 Rand is minimum wage for someone that does manage to find a job; this is a little over a dollar in US dollars. 13 Rand is a good wage in most blacks opinions because they are so desperate. Most people in the township of Philippi, similar to other townships, don’t get food to eat everyday. The staple food is bread because it is government subsidized. So food is the main issue and health services are an issue as well. The clinic in Philippi usually has a line at it at about 4:00am and the one clinic with one doctor serves about 300,000 people (Philippi and surrounding area). Philippi itself has about 60,000 to 100,000 people. Anyway, this should paint the picture of how impoverished they are. Well, imagine this. Many people are dying of AIDS; about 24% to 25% of South Africa’s adult population has aids. This was finally released by the government, for a long time they were saying that the % was going down but in fact it has increased by 2% over the last year (I think that’s right). They say that by the year of 2010 21% of S. Africa’s children will be orphans due to their families being affected by AIDS. So with this said it is understandable that a lot of funerals take place here in Africa. Funerals are expensive and they also hold a lot of cultural beliefs. The Xhosa people travel to Western Cape to go to the funerals (the transportation for the attendees of the funeral is expensive as well as shipping the corpse to be buried). It is a cultural must that you be buried by your ancestors and since most people come to Cape Town from Western Cape to find jobs that is where most of the family roots are. So, what we have are a bunch of people spending up to 2,500 Rand (do the math, that is a lot of work for them) every time someone dies, plus they are expected to feed everyone who attends the funeral, this is very important to them.
Knowing this, let’s take a look at the commonality of weddings. One pastor said that he had performed thousands of funerals and only 12 weddings in his life. Who has the money to throw a wedding when they can’t even keep up with the funerals?! So people don’t get married until they are much older, if ever. Marriage is not as common for a number of reasons. First of all, like I mentioned it is a lot of money to have a wedding, second of all men feel it is very shameful for a man to get married if he can not support his family (and 80% in Philippi are unemployed), and thirdly the man also has to worry about a Lu bola (not sure about spelling). The Lu bola is like a Dowry but it is paid to the father of the girl by the man who wants her for his wife. The educated girls are worth more. On average it takes about 10 years to pay off the complete dowry, but some do get married before it is fully paid. They are usually paid with something equivalent to like 12 cows.
OK, I have to go but we will continue this later…isn’t it interesting!?
Take care all!
Love,
Jaime
