Figure 5: Autoethnography to architecture

Figure 5: Autoethnography to architecture

2.5. Literature Review 3

Words, From world to

First, the author intentionally does not use his ethnic tongue, the Xhosa language, to write this thesis document. He changed all the dialogue recorded in the forthcoming narration into English for two reasons. Firstly, his command of the Xhosa language would make any attempt at translating a failure. Secondly, capturing the true sense of the experience would require him to write almost all the writing in isiXhosa, depriving most readers, as they do not have the ability to read the Xhosa language. Instead, for the critique in this research, the author writes this account as a summary and an attempt to take the elements the author thinks are relevant and translatable.

There are omissions, reductions, and elements of fiction due to the haziness that time births in memories. One day, the author hopes to educate themselves in their mother tongue to write their experience entirely. Some elements require both the European and African peoples’ languages to weave this story together seamlessly. The author separates himself from the study by writing in the third person in the sections and chapters. This makes it easier to relive some of these experiences and remind himself that he should be attempting to criticise the relevance of each experience as a narrator. Moreover, this story is as authentic as he could write in the limits imposed, both self and other. This is a narration of being South African in South African spaces. The prejudice, as I have suggested above, is largely traceable to the fact that most of the tales that have been put to print are a poor reflection of the circumstances in which they were told (Okpewho, 2009).

2.6. Autoethnography Part 1.

Ours, This land is. Gqeberha, 2000

The boy rode his bike down the road on a warm summer Saturday morning. He was with his brothers, one his age whom he called his twin, the other a few years older. He was riding in a slow, winding ‘S’ path, moving from one side of the road to the other. He kept this slow pace to keep in close distance of his father, who was walking behind. His father had his arms clasped behind his back, occasionally taking rocks off the tarred road and placing them on the side of the road. His older brother came rushing past, another cyclist speeding his way down and up the road. The road rose on both ends and allowed the older boy to gain momentum before streaming down. He became a distant figure as he approached the end of the road. The boy was holding a conversation with his father, although their replies had contemplative pauses in-between. The father was patient with the boy’s endless questions; after all, he had bought the science book that spoke of the stars, galaxies, and planets. As the boy and the father kept the conversation going, his brother kept winding through in the opposite direction, and silently. He was the quieter of the two. A car came up from behind, the boy’s father letting them know to move to the side and wait for it to pass. The blue sedan slowly drove past at the usual speed in this suburb area. The two boys watched the car pass, and the boy noticed their father staring at their older brother. They did the same and noticed their older brother barrelling down towards them, still in the same lane. The car was in the distance. The car crept but moved fast enough to cause the boy grievous injury. The boy’s father cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted for the boy to move out of the way. The boy raised one hand and waved, and then turned to the lane in which the boys were stopped. Unfortunately, he had done the turn too late, and the car driver had decided the same thing, opting to avoid the boy, and both now turned into the same lane. The boy panicked. His feet attempted to stop the bike while turning hard towards the edge of the road. The driver reacted by turning back into his lane and coming to a hard stop. The panicked older boy barrelled into a tree on the side of the road.

“Stay here,

” the boys’ father said to the two younger boys and jogged towards the scene. The man in the blue sedan was making gestures from his window at the older brother. When the father reached the scene, he turned towards the older boy, holding his mouth and supporting his bike with his other arm. The father checked him; his knowledge as a doctor showed in the familiarity of his actions in the task. He proceeded to guide the boy to the street, lifting his bent bike for him. The boy stood by the car and watched the angry gestures of the arms of the car owner and the father. It seemed to be an argument. After a few exchanges, the arm went back into the car, and the blue sedan sped off, turning into a house three blocks down from the scene.

The boy looked at his twin, exchanging curious expressions and turned to watch the father and older brother walking back towards them. As the pair approached and passed the boys, the father and the boy overheard a part of the conversation: “They think that this land is theirs. Remember son, no one owns the land. We sometimes build our house on it and ask our ancestors to protect it and us, but it is never really ours,“ the father said to the older boy as they walked. “Let us go home, ” he said to the other two. “They do not want black people here, and we are one of the only two black families in this street, ” he continued. “That is why we still cannot do any of the African ceremonies here either. They call the police.” The boy exchanged another look with his twin as they followed behind the pair. What does he mean by ‘black’?