Expectations

We all have preconceived notions of how things will go. After a few years on the planet, you get the hang of things, right? You know that if you show up at your B&B and the scattered woman who answers the door seems surprised to see anyone at the outside of the answered door, she is not the owner, but more likely a sister from out of town who has come to stay for a few days and get herself together. If the same woman says she knows where your room is, but doesn't have any keys, she only confirms what you have already assessed. The fact that said woman then tells you to open her bottle of wine because she does have some recollection of a bunch of keys somewhere solidifies it. She clearly is not the art collector and prolific author that has advocated for the rights of all South Africans for decades and then opened her home as a B&B.

If you haven't already guessed, this is yet another example of why we don't assume. Yes, meaning that it was indeed the owner and author. It was also she who put brothers-in-law in a petite room without any separation between bedroom and bathroom. I'm not a staunch advocate for privacy, but I have limits. Maybe not limits, but my nose is easily offended.

(I know- although I'm not magazine quality, I could work in postcards. The photo was captured using my new self-imaging technique. Click, click, click. I can't seem to depress the shutter button and keep my mouth closed.)
We have expectations of museums, too. At the Apartheid Museum up in Johannesburg, I had expectations of greatness. This is living history. The people of South Africa today were at each other's throats less than twenty years ago. People, who would have been mortal enemies then, live and work together every day now. Imagine the documentation and global media available to a museum dedicated to the toppling of a pro-apartheid goverment at the end of the millennium! Imagine what the Met would do to set the stage for that exhibit. Keep imagining because you'll have to check your expectations at the door of the Apartheid Museum. And bring your reading glasses.

Of course I say this having skipped the theater experience, unable to watch one more white club to the head, the back, the knee of another protesting student.

The tour through apartheid was a moving and troubling experience. The sensational aspects of the museum were shaped in my head, not on the countless plackards and monitors - maybe that was the point. People defy expectations of cruelty and bravery. But what do we expect?