Meeting the Inkosi (chief) of Inanda for the second time was a lot less daunting than the first time we had met in May 2009. When I came to Inanda with 15 other Canadian students in May, we had visited the Inkosi’s office to witness how the former homelands in South Africa were governed by traditional authorities. At the time, the Inkosi seemed serious, a bit curious, but most of all…intimidating! He had pop quizzed us in isiZulu, where most of us failed miserably. He couldn’t understand our English through our thick, drawled out, Canadian accents. And, he seemed to have gotten a bit upset after I had asked a question somewhat relating to South African politics.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes twice. I practiced my conversational isiZulu skills, I practiced explaining my research objectives, and I wrote down the questions (and had them reviewed by 2 people) that I would ask the Inkosi. There was only one other area that I had to make sure I nailed perfectly, and that was the dress code.
Back in May, none of the Canadian students knew that we were going to meeting the Inkosi that day, and most of the women (including myself) were wearing short dresses (not minis, but dresses that fell just above the knee) or tank tops with spaghetti straps. I suspected at the time that this was disrespectful, but the Inkosi didn’t seem offended. But when the administrators at the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) learned that I was going to visit the Inkosi, they stressed that I wear a long skirt or dress. That was a problem, since I didn’t pack a long skirt or dress. I figured I could wear pants or long shorts into the rural areas, but little did I know that wearing pants had become the subject of a heated debate in Zulu culture.
In 2007, there had been an attack on a woman who had worn a pair of pants to work in Umlazi (a suburb of Durban). She was stripped naked and beaten by a mob of men. Later, they burned her house down. Since then, the case has been covered extensively in the news, raising questions regarding women’s rights, sexual and racial discrimination, education, and the modern development of the Zulu culture in South Africa.
This case (and probably many other violent attacks that haven’t made headlines) has scared many Zulu women from wearing pants in certain areas. The other day, one of the CCS staff members was invited to go to a conference in downtown, but because she was wearing pants that day, she refused to attend the conference. She explained to me that she would have to be crazy to go into downtown wearing pants, and that she would risk being beaten and undoubtedly being harassed by Zulu men.
Out of respect for the Inkosi, I took the advice of the Administrators and ended up wearing a long caftan over my jeans. When Mama Dudu picked me up to take me into Inanda, I explained to her what the Administrators had told me to do/wear, and she scolded me for not knowing better that this chief, in particular, is very open to different cultures and understands that women from other areas are accustomed to different dress standards. She is certainly right. The Inkosi was very much interested in knowing every detail about my life in Canada. He asked about the weather, the landscape and the language (I got to show off my French skills!). Then he asked if my husband was fine with letting me go abroad for so long. I continuously replied that I didn’t have a husband, but he continued to ask how ‘my husband’ would manage to do his laundry, cook or clean without me. His administration, Mama Dudu and I were all in giggles.

I finally got my permission slip from the Inkosi to start conducting my research in Inanda, and the Inkosi even volunteered to be my first interviewee next Wednesday! I’m very excited to begin my research with rural residents in an area that has rarely lent itself to investigation.

If you are interested, please visit another travel blog I write on http://web5.uottawa.ca/ssms/blogs/international/category/afrique-du-sud/

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