United We Attempt To Stand

I work in a food factory that employs approximately 850 unskilled workers. I can count the white labourers on one hand. There's the bearded lady that always talks about apples. The short guy that cooks pasta and struggles to count past ten. The tiny woman in the bakery that looks like a tired prostitute, and then there's helena. Helena is beautiful. Both men and women stop to stare at her, to absorb her perfect face, sparkling blue eyes and gorgeous smile. She's perfect, and looks very out of place with her heavy red industrial apron, standing over a huge pot, digging into 50 kgs of mincemeat. But that about covers the white workers.
The more you get to deal with another race, the more obvious the little differences become. In SouthAfrica, there's a mentality that the black folk are trying to get across to the white ones, a mentality called "ubuntu". This loosely translates into "the spirit of togetherness", which translates into "if you are happy, we are all happy. If you succeed, we all succeed". I think this way of thinking is born from a physical closeness that black people grew up with (were forced to grow up with?). Rural black people stay in small houses, and often share a room with a whole family. There's a whle sex/AIDS theory that stems from the last sentence, but focus first. Because many blacks grew in a community system, as opposed to the white individual system, they were brought up with the spirit of ubuntu.
The problem with many white people seems to be that, because they were taught to fight for the individual, it's easier for them to trample others into the ground in the attempt to get to the top of an imaginary ladder. I know I'm generalising, but it's neccessary. Ubuntu also has its glitches, but white Southafricans can learn a lot from the black way of thinking, and vice versa.
I love this country. We're the experimental tip of Africa.
This physical closeness not only breeds a way of thinking/doing things, but also makes them more comfortable with each other. It's the one thing I cannot get my head around, the one thing I see at work every day: they all hold hands. Men and women, women and women, men and men.. People will always be strolling down the corridors, holding hands like it's rush-hour in lover's lane. And there's absolutely nothing sexual or suggestive about it. They just do it. It's just such an oddity to see two 40-year old black guys holding hands while chatting about soccer.
I was talking to a girl in the micro lab, when she asked me whether I had any kids. Haha, nono, I'm only 24, and I'll need a husband first. She seemed honestly surprised: "Oh? You want to be married before you have kids?" Uhm, like, yah. I don't do Pregnancy a la stranger. A small, yet huge difference in way of thinking. They do not mind having babies at age 18, fathered by someone who will never be a father.
Disclaimer - When I refer to 'black people', it is in reference to those who work with me. Move to the city, and you get a completely different mentality. Trying my best to be very P.C. - it's the language of the sensitive seffrican.