Connecting cultures

Marisa O’Neil

Like many Newport-Mesa teenagers, Nombulelo Moeti likes to go to the

mall, watch movies, listen to rap music and hang out with her

boyfriend.

But when her boyfriend comes to pick up the 17-year-old South

African at her home, she told local students on Wednesday, he’s not

allowed inside. Cultural mores say he must stand outside and whistle

for her.

“But sometimes when my parents aren’t home ... “ she started with

a shy smile, drawing sympathetic laughs from the high-school

students.

Nombulelo and fellow South African Themba Diniso, 30, met with

at-risk students Wednesday at the Mesa Education Center to share

their country’s history and some of their culture. The two are in

town for a conference at Soka University in Aliso Viejo and the Amy

Biehl International Peace Festival, named for the former Newport

Beach resident murdered in a township in Cape Town more than 10 years

ago.

Diniso runs a literacy program through the Amy Biehl Foundation,

and Nombulelo, who has gone through programs at the foundation, has

been honored with the Desmond Tutu Emerging Leader award for her work

at school. She is a dancer, musician and volunteers for HIV and AIDS

awareness at her school.

Though both cultures share some things in common, Nombulelo said

that the standard of living for teenagers here varies greatly from

her home in Cape Town.

“They live better,” she said of Southern California students. “We

don’t get to drive when we’re 16. They get their own rooms and big

houses; they have computers and hot running water at their homes,

something I don’t have.”

Linda Biehl, Amy Biehl’s mother, spoke with the students about her

daughter’s efforts to improve race relations in the age of apartheid

and her fatal beating and stabbing in 1993 by an angry mob in a black

township. She has since forgiven the men convicted of killing her

daughter, she told the students, and two of them came to visit her

after being granted political amnesty.

“Most of these kids don’t even know [Amy Biehl’s] story,” teacher

Lisa Locke said. “We live in such a microcosm. Kids don’t think

beyond this area.”

Diniso told the students about the long history of racial division

in South Africa. He works with some of Amy Biehl’s killers in the

foundation.

“We forget the past,” he said. “But sometimes you have to visit

the past to go forward.”

Violent killings are less common in South Africa now, he said. But

now, he added, black and white people are both likely to get robbed

if they go out at night.

The students listened to Nombulelo say a rhyme in the Xhosa

language, which includes a series of tongue clicks. The fidgety group

also listened with rapt attention as she pounded away with

unbelievable speed and precision on a 3-foot-tall jembay-style drum.

“I’d like to learn to do those beats,” 17-year-old Alex Gonzalez

said. “You could make a lot of money in hip-hop with those.”

Another student, 16-year-old Jordan Kalke, shared some information

about the American culture with the pair. Like Nombulelo, he said,

they go to the movies and hang out at the mall, but they aren’t as

afraid to go out at night.

“Not a lot of people tell us how it is to live someplace else,”

Jordan said of the visit. “It’s nice to hear someone making a

difference.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.