The Lekgoa and the Lekwerekwere

“Lekgoa! Lekgoa!” the children scream as they run behind me. Well, I guess it’s not surprising; it’s what you expect as the only white person in the village. Every Peace Corps Volunteer is told to expect it. Wait a second…

I’m not white.

There is no mob of little people trailing me in adoration. There is no verbal labeling of “Whitey”. But there is another type of labeling.

My white colleagues may at first find me in an enviable position. As an American of South Asian decent, I fit rather well into my Tswana village. There are roughly half a dozen Bangladeshi and Pakistani shop owners (in addition to the Somali and the Chinese couple). When I showed up in the village, I wasn’t a rock star. People assumed I had come to sell biscuits and cooldrink (pop…or soda…or coke…whatever). Granted, it’s been almost a year now so people have mostly figured out that’s not my shtick. In a couple of months, if all goes well, when villagers see children reading books under trees and condoms flowing freely from the taverns, they’ll shake their heads and say, “Oh, that KB…” But it’s taken a lot to get to this point. Upon entering my village, I quickly realized, I needed to make an effort to go out and introduce myself to people. If I showed up at a community event or was just walking around the village, I did not attract the attention, questions, and introductions that my fairer skinned friends received a few villages away. I didn’t mind. The challenge added to the impetus to bulk up on language and social networking skills.

The biggest challenge of not being a “Lekgoa” PCV is knowing when to pre-empt a random stranger by somehow declaring, “Wait! I’m not Makwerekwere! I’m an American volunteer.” Ma-what? While Lekgoa is used to reference to any White, non-South African or English South African, Makwerekwere is used to reference migrant workers and illegal immigrants. Makwerekwere is mostly used in reference to other African’s but can extend to the East and South Asians who work all over the country and are often perceived as “stealing” jobs. Examining each word etymologically is an interesting exercise. I’ve heard two different tales of the origins of Lekgoa.

Lekgoa – “lay-k’ho-a” – n. – a European or white American, “whitey”

The first, perhaps more fanciful origin, is that the word is a combination of the Tswana/Sotho words “lewatle” and “go kqwa”. These word’s mean “ocean” and “to spit”, respectively. Hence “Lekgoa” would be “The spit of the ocean” because the first white people to arrive in South Africa were more or less spat up from the ocean. Lovely [1]. The second, and perhaps more credible explanation is that the word finds its roots in the verb “go kgoa” which means “to be rude or have no manners”. Adding “le-“ is a common way to nounify a verb in Setswana [2]. (Now, I have friends that complain that the “le-/ma-“ noun class is an object class used to describe things like brooms, spoons, and bad people like thieves. Honestly, though, “lekgarebe” and “lekgau” are in the same class and mean “girlfriend” and “boyfriend” respectively, so no more complaining on that count.)

Lekwerekwere – “lay-kway-ray-kway-ray” – n. – non-southern African African’s, illegal immigrants, the equivalent of “spick” in American English.

This also has many fanciful candidates for an origin story, but the most credible one I’ve found comes from Lesotho. The Sotho equivalent is “lekoerekoere” and it’s origin is pretty much the same as the origin of the word “barbarian”. When Sotho speaking southern African’s encountered other Africans, it sounded like they were speaking gibberish saying “kwere-kwere-kwere” so there you have it, they are the “makwerekwere”.

So on the face of it, “Lekgoa” seems like a greater slur than “Lekwerekwere” but the subtext of South Africa flips that on its head.

When the xenophobic attacks broke out, people at home became frantic because PCVs are also foreigners and might be targeted. But there are two classes of foreigners in South Africa; the Lekgoa and the Lekwerekwere. Xenophobia is mostly targeted at the latter. “Makwerekwere” was originally restricted to other Africans, but unfortunately, I feel like the term has become a bit more derogatory in South Africa and signifies a sentiment against any “foreigner” that is seen to be taking jobs. I was told that I shouldn’t worry about the attacks because it was aimed at other Africans. Then I watched the news and saw a Bangladeshi guy almost in tears talking about how a mob came and destroyed everything he had worked years to create. In the background, some cops were standing around outside of his shop, laughing. My Bangladeshi shop owner friends started locking up earlier each night.

So really, even if I was white, I wouldn’t mind being called “Lekgoa” every day. At least it means, people know I’m a foreigner and not an Afrikaaner. Not that there is anything wrong with being Afrikaaner. It would just lead to a lot of other unspoken assumptions that could be problematic. Instead, whenever I travel to a city or a new taxi rank, I ask myself, who is calling me “Makwerekwere” in their head and what can I do to change their mind. I have never heard someone call me “Makwerekwere” to my face and if I did, I would probably be better off showing them my heels; whether that meant kicking them in the face or running away, would probably depend on how many of them there were. (On the plus side, I do get called “my friend” which is the generic village term for any South Asian shopowner. The less nice term for South Asians is “coolie” or “macoolie” in Tswana)

Riding a khumbi is always a unique experience. Cramming a minimum of 14 people, a driver, a few babies, luggage, groceries, and perhaps two, three, or ten more people into a minibus van has a tendency to bring out the best and worst in people. A week ago, two of my teachers were shopping in town and loading up a taxi to take their things back to the village. Now, these teachers, like most of my teachers, are not Batswana (Tswana people). They come from Gauteng, Limpopo, Eastern Cape, KZN, Mpumalanga, etc. They serve a village educating kids while their own kids are thousands of kilometers away. Some of them have been doing it for up to 13 years. I have a huge respect for them because I know I couldn’t do this for much more than two years. So, two of these teachers were at the taxi loading up and leaving some bags on their seats to save their spots.

A woman came buy, looked angrily at the seats and demanded, “Why are those bags on the seat?”
Mme S replied, “We are loading our things. That is where my friend Mme M is going to sit.”
The woman grunted in disapproval, removed the bags, and sat down. Mme M confronted her about it to which the woman replied,

“You teachers think you are so special but you’re just Makwerekwere who came here on the back of some trucks. You should just go back to where you came from.”
“Excuse me, we are teaching your children.”
“You’re just here because you can’t get a job in your home. We aren’t stupid. Why do we need you to teach our children?”
“So where are your teachers then?”

In the end both my teachers made it back to the village but they were both fuming. It made me wonder what people might be thinking about me on the khumbi, or anywhere really.

But being “Lekwerekwere” isn’t always a bad thing. When a group is stereotyped and clumped together, people that previously had no connection tend to unite and watch each other’s backs. On a taxi, a South Asian will always give me a knowing nod. Non-South African African’s will approach me in the taxi rank to ask for help or directions, sometimes choosing to talk to me over South Africans. Once, a village shop owner that I’d never met before sat next to me on a taxi. After saying hello we sat in silence for one and a half hours until we came to a gas station. While the tank filled, he got out and came back with two Powerades and handed me one. Again, I got the knowing nod. I like that nod.

Most recently, I was standing by the side of the road waiting for a taxi to take me back to my village. There were a few Tswana people waiting as well as a guy that I’m going to guess was Somali. I greeted everyone as usual and we stood around for a long time. Finally a taxi came but had only two spots open. A woman with a small child got in as well as the Somali guy. Once I saw the taxi was full, I turned around to go sit down. When I didn’t hear the engine start, I turned around to see the Somali guy gesturing for me to come back. He said I had arrived before him so shouldn’t wait and he squeezed over to give me room to cram in. There were other people who had arrived earlier too but he knew I was a strange person in a strange land, just like him, and lent a hand with a knowing nod.

I used to be a bit annoyed that I didn’t have the “Pied Piper Effect”. I used to be relieved to not constantly be harangued by people yelling “Lekgoa”. Being a white volunteer brings challenges and benefits. Being a minority volunteer brings challenges and benefits. They just are different challenges and benefits. In the end you just have to be aware of it, be mindful of it, and give a little nod.

(1) This first explanation comes from my Pre-Service Training language instructor, in incredible Gordan.
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lekgoa
(3) http://www.languagehat.com/archives/003131.php
(4) http://sotho.blogsome.com/2004/01/12/6/