After a few days of surfing in Jeffrey's Bay, Stacey said to me, "I can tell you're in your element here." I had been feeling the same.
As soon as I arrived in Jeffrey's it felt like home. There were white, black and in-between people; Lesotho is all black. There were restaurants, cars, houses. I went surfing each day. It was not cold. I met up with my friends Garth and Yvonne, who live there and whom I had met last year. But still certain things reminded me that Jeffrey's Bay is a distinctly South African beach town and not exactly my southern California home.
There are sort of two Jeffrey's Bays. The town proper is butted up against a township. In the town everyone works and plays together, but mostly whites live there, while blacks live in the township to the south. It's strange at first sight, and even second sight, and for much of my time there I was uncomfortably aware of my color, as well as everyone else's. It was largely my own fault though, that hyper-awareness. Maybe it was because I have been living in Lesotho, being the only white guy where I live.
Anyway, the hostel I stayed in was near the township and so I got to surf with quite a few black kids each day at a spot called Kitchen Windows. One of the township kids was surfing quite well in fact, and he was a bundle of energy in general, always paddling like a shark was chasing him, splashing water and chatting. And he also kept humming hip-hop and kwaito tunes, essentially black music. I knew the songs because they're the same ones my students in Lesotho sing. I enjoyed the mix of cultures this kid displayed: Surfing is pretty much a white thing, but he was clearly into it. However, he went home to his all black neighborhood at night and danced to music made by his black brothers. He did what he liked to do, listened to what he liked to listen to. Period. That's brave, especially for a youngster.