To bring you all up-to-date before I bus up to Namibia tomorrow, I've decided to do a highlight reel of the last bit of my time here in South Africa. The substantial entry left you all somewhere in Mozambique, so I'll pick up the thread there. And from now on I pinky-promise to keep up my journal on the road and blog it whenever I can, or at least put up one MASSIVE novel of an entry when I return.
So here goes:
The rest of Mozambique:
There are some things we can't take home. There have been so many moments on this trip where I've wanted to share an experience with a friend or family member and I know that no photo or email or letter will ever bring that moment to them. It is frustrating but also makes it precious in its own way.
I woke up at 5:15 to see the sun rise over the Indian Ocean. The local fishermen were already cutting across the beach on their way to the far end and their swift bodies and tall fishing rods cast noble shadows on the sand.
At 6-ish, we were picked up by the militant-looking German horse guide. We walked to his modest ranch against the tide ofr women walking in the opposite direction to the market with their fruit and veggies in buckets on their heads. We arrive at and I'm put on the "wilder" silver horse, Tessa mounts a beautiful chestnut horse.
The day is still fresh and the horses seem a bit sleepy until we're out on the beach. The clip-clopping of their hooves, the soft crashing of waves and the shuffle of the guide's two dogs running and playing alongside us is the the symphony of sound here. We are mostly silent-- savouring the scenery,which is all sand and water broken up by solitary fisherman late for work.
Near the end of the beach section our guide asks us if we want to kanter. I had forgotton how powerful horses are, how unbelievably exhilarating it is to ride them when they give in to their power. I lean forward and put my weight into my heels, suspending myself just above the saddle as the hooves thunder under me on the sand.
We go up the dunes and inland for the rest of the ride. We travel through the forests, getting up to somelook-out points. The best part was riding by the various villages where the locals waved and we exchanged a few "Bon Dias". The tiny children were especially curious, practicing their English, "Hello! How are you?!" in staccato mimicry.
We come upon an old lady who is leaning against a tree and we say hello as we pass. She nods her head and waves. As we get out of ear shot our guide tells us this woman is roughly 90 years old and is the local witch doctor. I'm glad I was polite.
Later that afternoon Tessa and I decide to walk down the other end of the beach. It beegins to rain near the tail end of our walk, which ends at the monument at a cliff. The monument, which is an arm coming out of a pyramid with a broken chain hanging from the wrist, is set there to commemorate the Mozambiqan prisoners who were drowned by the Portuguese. Under the cliffs there are caves which the Portuguese would chain the prisoners to during low tide and leave them there for high tide.
We decided to walk on the dirt road on the way back. It starts to rain quite hard so Tessa and I ask a local if we can sit on his porch, under the awning until it passes. Life here follows this pace overall-- we are calm and patient, everything happens in its own time. I sink into that feeling like a warm bath.
Tonight is the full moon part at Dino's (one of the few restaurants here). All of Tofo is there and I'm surprised by the amount of people I know from the days we've spent here: Jesian, the Mozambiqan guy that I bought bracelets from at the market; Hugh, the Brit who had designer everything; Damin, the Australian backpacker who continues to "extend" his stay in Tofo; and surprise, surprise-- some people from Cape Town! Allison, a girl I drum with in Khayelitsha, and Mark and Chris, Micheala's German friends.
But it was nice to just spend time with Brandon, Curtis and Tessa. Sometimes you just happen upon people who you connect with and that is better than meeting hundreds of people. I grew really fond of these two innocents--especially in contrast to all the drugged, drunked backpackers surrounding us.
We walked back to the hostel and said our goodbyes-- short and sweet. Two warm hugs and a timid kiss on the cheek from Curtis. Tessa and I go to sleep, knowing we have to be up in three hours to catch the bus back to maputo.
Swaziland
You can telll a lot about a country by their boder crossings. Even the vibe on the bus to Swaziland was different-- lighter, somehow more carefree. The bus is filled with mostly nicely dressed wimen who chat the whole ride long-- their voices carry that "seen everything" tone that older women and men have here, and at times laugh so hard that I really want to ask them what they are saying.
There is no crazy line at the border. The building is clean and well-maintained. Everything is completed efficiently. About one mile into Swaziland, we're checked by a border guard- they are absolutely friendly.
We arrive in Manzini, a small city near the Ezulwini Valley, grab a taxi and soon we're at Sondzela Backpackers. After traveling 8+ hours on bus rides, Swaziland seems so small. More than the time it takes to travel around it, people's genuine kindness, friendliness, and concern also gives the whole country a small-twon feel. I'm getting the creeping feeling of not wanting to go back to South Africa.
We arrive at the hostel in the middle of the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary. Sondzela Backpackers is run by a handful of very large, African "mamas", as Tessa calls them-- but there is no better word. At 6:30 each night, they bang a big bass drum to call everyone to dinner. We eat hearty stew, rice and salad by the camp fire and are in bed by 9:30.
But before dinner Tessa and I go on a short walk to the main camp (which has more luxury accomodations). Tessa and I flopped down the hill happily but suddenly she stops directly in front of me. She turns around with this big grin on her face. I'm thinking-- "what are you doing?". Then something catches my eye to the right of me and I spot my first wild zebra! They were beautiful, just standing in the grass nibbling away. I couldn't believe it. Tessa laughed and said she figured it was my first wild zebra so she thought I should find it on my own. It was one of the most beautiful gifts she's ever given me.
On our short, 20 minute walk we spot kudu, warthog, monkeys, birds, fish, turtles and crocodiles.
The next day we do an extensive hike of the whole park-- starting at around 9 and returning at 3 pm. We talk and don't talk. We make silly jokes and listen to the gorillas in the distance. We get lost and realize our sense of direction is better than the map. When we return, we do the same dinner routine. The mama's start to call me "Sisi" and teach Tessa and I how to knit blankets (part of an AIDS project in Swaziland). After dinner, there is lightning in the distance this time. I try to take photos of the bold lines crashing down over the valley but fail. Instead I take some great shots of everyone around the camp fire-- the fire burst up into the air and everyone in a semi-circle of blurred, neon bodies.
In Swaziland there was a taste of the Africa that looms in our imaginations. Everyone keeps saying they want to see it-- the "real" Africa. I don't think there is such a thing. It is all real but this is one of the portraits that fits nicely in our bold outlines. In any event, I am so thankful for these two weeks because they have truly re-awoken that wanderlust in me.
April 15, 2007- April 26, 2007: Juliet (a.k.a. Sista from another Papa) visits!
Check out her blog for more details-- you may need to look back a little bit to get it all but it's there. And Damn, we tore it up: http://tresfabfoofoojewelz.blogspot.com/ The rough itinerary was: Chapman's Peak Drive, Boulder's Beach and the penguins, Camps Bay, drumming at Khayelitsha, V&A Waterfront, Stellenbosch and wine tasting, Franschhoek and MORE wine tasting, Hiking Table Mountain, Robben Island, Cape Point, etc...
April 26-May 24th: Working to catch up from Juliet's visit, working to get ahead for Tessa's visit. Plus Chimurenga deadline looms! AHH!
May 24, 2007 -May 28, 2007: Tessa's visit
Since Tessa had already been to Cape Town, this was more of a "let's take an advantage of being in the same country again" sort of thing. So, I wanted to give her a slice of my life here in Cape Town.
Started off with a walk down to Rhondebosch commons, where I run. Then off to UCT to check out the campus. Later that evening we kicked it off at Charlton House (big house of international students where some of my German friends live) and got down at Hemisphere, where the usual debauchery kept us dancing until the early morning.
The next day, tired and a bit hungover, we ran some errands and went to my FINAL class of the semester. My program director, Melissa Steyn, kindly invited all the students to her house for the last course and we had some great discussion, debate, and dessert! Can't ask for more than that!
On Saturday, I completely my list of necessary To-Do's in Cape Town by finally visiting Robben Island. Powerful and inspiring, history was given life in the shades of grass in the prison yard, the smallness of the window looking out of Mandela's cell, the dry red rust on the barbed wire fences, the halting speech of the ex-prisoner who toured us around the facilities, the generosity of spirit between him and the people he spoke to.
Tessa and I had a little brainchild for Saturday evening-- invite over a handful of individually interesting people we knew in the area, who didn't know each other at all, make some dinner and add a few bottles of wine and see what sparks would fly. The guest list: myself (American), Tessa (Dutch), Micheala and Kai and Tchoo Tchoo (my German roommates), Che and his girlfriend (South African and Namibian respectively), Jacob (Dutch) and his friend Sarah (Senegalese). So the network is: I know Tessa, I live with the roommates, Tessa knows Che because he studied abroad in Amsterdam, I met Jacob in a club one of my first weeks in Cape Town and he happened to know my program director because he is doing research on Afrikaaners, he is also supervising Sarah's masters work. So what happens when you get a group of international intellectuals together? AMAZING conversation-- debates and laughter and controversy and flirtation and smoke-breaks and 5 empty bottles of wine and no one getting up from the table until around 2 a.m. It was heaven.
Tessa's visit was short but sweet. And we're meeting in Botswana soon. It felt so good to give her a quick hug at the airport and say "See you in three weeks!" when normally we don't have any set time of when we'll see eachother next. Still, I'm in awe of the fact that she and I manage these feats of global-friendship. I guess it just shows how much we mean to each other.
The Goodbye
Last week was my last day at Khayelitsha. We spent the afternoon painting. At one point, one of the other volunteers said to me, "How should we approach the topic of us leaving?". This basically meant, "Can you be the one to tell them?". I sighed and turned to the girls and asked them if they knew that today was the last day. They didn't (even though I had told them the week before). I felt that pull in my chest and said "Today is our last day together. We have to go back home. But next semester you will have some new university students who will come each week and do the arts program with you." Siziwe didn't really understand, she asked "Well, when are you coming back". She was painting. She didn't look up at me. I don't think she wanted to. I said "We're not coming back. We have to go home. I'm sorry. But next semester you'll have new students who will teach you new things." I was trying my best to soften things but they all got it. We were all quiet for some time. It was important to me to tell them the truth but it cut through me in a way I wasn't prepared for. I said "Next semester is going be a lot of fun for you, you'll have all new instructors that you can play your tricks on. Promise me you'll give them a hard time" They laughed and broke the sadness that had settled on the room. I was thankful for that because then we were able to just have a nice time and celebrate a bit. We brought out our cameras and took a lot of funny pictures together. The girls love to pose. As we walked back to the main building, Yandiswa called my name and ran up to me and gave me a big hug. Then Siziwe and Nosiphiwo did too. I hugged them all tightly and told them to take care of themselves and each other. And that was that.
The See You Laters:
This week has been a lot of hopeful "See You Laters":
My final day at Chimurenga, I hand in the last edits minutes before I'm set to leave and Ntone gives me one of his signature embraces-- he is all woollen beard and incense, like a soft rastafarian bear. And Rucera also gives me a sweet peck on the cheek and fragile hug. They are such a funny couple but I love them together and separate. We all laugh nervously but I'll be dropping in on them on the way back, so no good-bye's just yet. Still, we all know that this was one of those moments in life that isn't likely to be repeated. We were a team for a split second... it was really fantastic.
Tchoo Tchoo took me to dinner at the V&A Waterfront. As time runs out, a lot of our interactions have the bitter-sweet acknowledgement that this is the last time we'll do this together or the last time we'll do that together. Ha! Even "This" versus "That"-- it's one of the rules of English that I clumsily tried to clarify for him. But sometimes I realize I don't even hear his German accent anymore. I rarely hear any mistakes, even though I know there are small ones there. I just hear him. I forget he is from somewhere completely different from me and that just 4 months ago I didn't know him at all. Like he would say "that's aMAAZing". But we're going for the "See You Later" plan and I know we can make it happen. I'll visit Berlin. He'll visit New York. Two great friends in two of the world's best cities... and who knows where else we might meet. I'm so happy for him because this trip sparked the wanderlust in him and there is so much that he has to look forward to. So many adventures we might still have.
Tonight is my "Bye-Bye Braii". I've invited over the loose circle of friends who have been a part of this moment. We'll drink, bbq and have some good talks. And at the end of the night, I'll give everyone a big hug in the hopes that they will all be See-You-Laters...but probably not. Still, I am able to appreciate them all and to be present at this point in time-- like the very top of the arc where it is just between climbing and descending.
Tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. I board a bus to Namibia-- two and a half months of travelling and then I'm back in New York. It's funny because I do feel as though I'm on my way home-- I'm just taking the long way.
~Nathalie
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Random Thoughts I should have put up here a long time ago
1. I never thought I would be able to say this, but I was attacked by a baboon. There, now I've said it.
2. I met the New Zealand Rugby team-- they somewhere between Homo Habilus and Homo Sapien in the evolution of man. Juliet was kind enough to provide a visual aid of the one who was hitting on me. Her man is still not up to Homo Habilus. (see above).
3. My gym plays sports channels and Merrie Melodies cartoons 24 hours a day. I have the best workouts to Tom and Jerry.
4. When you're jogging on the road in Cape Town and want to cross the street but a car is coming, sometimes the driver will stop as though they are going to let you pass but then he will wag his pointer finger at you, left to right-- which in my culture means, "No, no" in a parental-scolding sort of manner. Here, it means "Yes, please walk back and forth". This may be why I got a lot of strange looks before I figured this out and would flip off the drivers.
5. I heard a rumor that there is a milk shortage.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
EzpunkX is my friend, Jupiter4120 is me-- this was our online conversation today
EzpunkX: hello?
JuPiTeR4120: hi
EzpunkX: what are you doing online?
JuPiTeR4120: i'm at work
JuPiTeR4120: where are you?
EzpunkX: work
JuPiTeR4120: how are you?
EzpunkX: doing good i got like 9 hours of sleep last night...
EzpunkX: how about you?
JuPiTeR4120: nice!
JuPiTeR4120: i also had great sleep last night and the CRAZIEST dream
EzpunkX: about what?
JuPiTeR4120: i dreamt i was home.
JuPiTeR4120: but this is the first time.
EzpunkX: yea i've been having weird dreams too.
JuPiTeR4120: i dreamt i was home and it was SOOO real. It was so real that when I woke up I had no idea where I was
EzpunkX: really?
EzpunkX: thats cool
JuPiTeR4120: yea, the dream was: I was in my bedroom, sleeping, and it was my first day home... and i woke up in my bedroom and came into the hallway and my family was there-- my mom was saying how happy she was i was home and my dad was really happy too... he gave me a big hug and then continued peeling potatoes-- there were SO many potatoes
JuPiTeR4120: like we were going to have a BIG party that night.
EzpunkX: haha
JuPiTeR4120: it was beautiful.. my dad in this new kitchen (the kitchen I imagine he has constructed--which hasn't actually happened yet!)
JuPiTeR4120: and all these potatoes
JuPiTeR4120: like piles and piles of potatoes
JuPiTeR4120: it was great.. and my mom hugged me
JuPiTeR4120: and i just felt really loved and everything was normal and i was home
EzpunkX: sounds like a nice dream
EzpunkX: and that you have a serious subconsious craving for potatoes
JuPiTeR4120: ha
JuPiTeR4120: i'm putting this conversation in my blog
JuPiTeR4120: hi
EzpunkX: what are you doing online?
JuPiTeR4120: i'm at work
JuPiTeR4120: where are you?
EzpunkX: work
JuPiTeR4120: how are you?
EzpunkX: doing good i got like 9 hours of sleep last night...
EzpunkX: how about you?
JuPiTeR4120: nice!
JuPiTeR4120: i also had great sleep last night and the CRAZIEST dream
EzpunkX: about what?
JuPiTeR4120: i dreamt i was home.
JuPiTeR4120: but this is the first time.
EzpunkX: yea i've been having weird dreams too.
JuPiTeR4120: i dreamt i was home and it was SOOO real. It was so real that when I woke up I had no idea where I was
EzpunkX: really?
EzpunkX: thats cool
JuPiTeR4120: yea, the dream was: I was in my bedroom, sleeping, and it was my first day home... and i woke up in my bedroom and came into the hallway and my family was there-- my mom was saying how happy she was i was home and my dad was really happy too... he gave me a big hug and then continued peeling potatoes-- there were SO many potatoes
JuPiTeR4120: like we were going to have a BIG party that night.
EzpunkX: haha
JuPiTeR4120: it was beautiful.. my dad in this new kitchen (the kitchen I imagine he has constructed--which hasn't actually happened yet!)
JuPiTeR4120: and all these potatoes
JuPiTeR4120: like piles and piles of potatoes
JuPiTeR4120: it was great.. and my mom hugged me
JuPiTeR4120: and i just felt really loved and everything was normal and i was home
EzpunkX: sounds like a nice dream
EzpunkX: and that you have a serious subconsious craving for potatoes
JuPiTeR4120: ha
JuPiTeR4120: i'm putting this conversation in my blog
Thursday, May 3, 2007
April 1, 2007
April Fool’s Day! Tessa and I begin the day by playing a little trick on Brandon and Curtis—the two most wholesome, apple-pie boys that we met on the bus to Tofo, who happen to be from Washington (Washington State that is—they always politely specify, in case anyone might get confused).
We cajole the local stubborn goat to their bungalow door (which entails Tessa alternating between screeches of terror and delight while I laugh hysterical, take photographs with one hand and attempt to lure the goat with grass with the other hand). Tessa and I can barely hold in our giggling as we near their door and so we knock loudly and run behind some shelter. Curtis sleepily opens the door and we bust out laughing. When Tessa and I travel together, we are really like children again—we giggle a lot.
Today is the first completely sunny day in Tofo, which is a relief since I was afraid of going back to Cape Town whiter than I left it. But thus far our time in Tofo has been filled with the sounds of water. The fat plop of heavy rain on a plastic minibus window. The laughter and screams of children just let out of school and walking along the road as we zoom through the massive puddles. The dull dense blank noise of lying underwater as the tide pulls your body out to sea. The best sound has been the constant simplicity of waves crashing—an overlapping crescendo and decrescendo. And sleeping in to the sound of drizzle on the roof of our reed bungalow.
On the day we arrive (March 29, 2007), it is only raining off and on, which adds drama to this paradise—the sun poking out randomly and the glossy reflection of sunshine off a wet, wide green palm leaf. I immediately dive into the Indian Ocean under an early rising moon, the sun simultaneously setting down shore.
Tessa, Brandon, Curtis and I have dinner at a restaurant a short walk down the beach where lightning bolts down over the water, cracking the black sky like an egg. We all run home together in the rain, laughing at the predicament—rain in paradise.
The next day (March 30, 2007), Tessa and I plan to take a long walk on the beach but as we begin the warmth of the ocean water running up against our feet is overpowered by the cold rain and sting of gusts of sand. So we run into a restaurant and wait out the rain.
We only manage to walk down the shore for about 10 minutes, then back the opposite direction into “town”, which consists of a very small food market of roughly 10 women and their tables filled with vegetables and grains. Also there are about 5 women selling fish and some men with craft stalls.
In Tofo, time is measured in sun rises, tides, the breaking of clouds, and the sun set. Everything else is a blank darkness, which one can subdivide as they like. Most of the travelers here are surfers or divers—they generally drink or do copious amounts of drugs. Tessa and I are neither and are content to have a drink, a laugh and head to bed in hopes of better weather the next day.
This tomorrow (March 31, 2007) has nice weather long enough for Tessa and I to take our long walk (roughly 2 hours?), which leads us down the inside curve of the crescent bay. It is good to travel with Tessa because I am able to be all parts of myself around her—the silly, the funny, the sad, the happy, the serious. And our talks are directionless in their flow. It is relaxing and refreshing to spend time with someone who knows you so well and who you know so well.
We make another visit to the market and decide to be bold—we buy prawns, carrots, aubergine (translation for the states: eggplant), onions, garlic, rice, 2 coconuts and oil (which the woman siphons into a tiny plastic bag and ties a knot at the top). Take notes because this meal was delicious!
But before we can be chefs, we first must be swimmers. Just after sunset, the strength of the current, height of the waves and deepening colors of the sky gives the swim a dangerous, taboo feeling. Tessa and I laugh as we play in the waves but we don’t stray too deep, making sure the sand is firmly underneath us.
Brandon and Curtis meet us at the hostel’s outdoor kitchen. Tessa and I spend most of our time shelling and de-veining the shrimp while Curtis uses a wine corkscrew to pop open 2 holes in the coconuts to draw out their milk, and Brandon amuses himself by taking pictures and video of the whole event (specifically all the tiny and not-so-tiny geckos that have gathered near the lantern to catch the insects attracted to the light).
The more time we spend wit Bran and Curtis, the more I truly enjoy their company. At first Tessa and I thought they were the two most freakishly polite boys we had ever met. Then she saw Brandon reading what looked like a evangelical book, so we thought they were missionaries! I said to myself, “Oh crap, they’re going to try to convert me!”—but they didn’t at all. They have been so absolutely sweet—Brandon, especially is so innocent, but very curious and genuine. Curtis is a bit older and not quite as doe-eyed but still completely kind and gentle. His whole presence is relaxing and content.
Today, (April 1, 2007), we all take a “sea safari”, which turns out to be equal parts rollercoaster happiness and rollercoaster nausea. Apparently Mo’bique is known for their whale sharks—which look like sharks but act like whales as they feed on plankton by filtering the water, as well as being harmless to people.
Luckily we’re put on a sea safari that Simon, Tessa’s dive guide who we bumped into in Maputo, is leading. We push the high-speed rubber boat into the water and against the waves. Somehow we manage to jump in just as we get the boat in deep enough so that the motor can be turned on. The driver kicks the engine into high gear as we crash into the crests of the waves head on and over the first wall of water. As we travel further out, the swells become huge and I’m squealing as we fly off each edge. We’re all gripping onto the ropes with white knuckles and soon one of the Tofo Scuba guys is climbing up into a high seat (about 7 feet above the boat) to help spot dark shadows in the clear blue water.
Pretty soon they’ve spotted a whale shark. The boat quickly zooms around in front of it and our fins and masks are on. Plop, plop into the water but the shark gets frightened and dives down deeper into the water.
We’re back on the boat not 5 minutes when a huge manta ray is spotted. Plop, plop. This manta ray is easily larger than I am. It hovers just feet from us for a while as its massive fins roll out to the sides.
The mixture of adrenaline, snorkeling in these huge swells and jumping in and out of the boat causes me to feel a bit nauseas but I steady myself and look towards land (which is what you’re instructed to do if you’re not feeling well since it’s the only point of reference that isn’t actually moving). I’m feeling better soon and enjoying the high speed search. The water is a deep blue and the sun is warm enough to dry us off pretty quickly (at least those not directly in the way of the ocean spray).
Luckily someone spots a school of dolphin nearby but unfortunately, they don’t seem to want to stay and play. We get a few moments glipse of the graceful arch of their backs and soon they’ve dove deep into the water.
A bit later, we’re also in the water, just feet from a “teenage” whale shark, which is roughly 5 or 6 meters. Everyone hovers at a respectful distance. Simon is even able to get some pictures of her underbelly. I don’t think I’ve ever swam with such a large animal before in my life. You float there in tossing sea, in absolute awe of its humbling size.
The rest of the day is uneventful in that lazy summer, beach life manner. Tessa and I make dinner and Curtis and Brandon join us while we eat outside under the cover of tangled vines and starlight.
We cajole the local stubborn goat to their bungalow door (which entails Tessa alternating between screeches of terror and delight while I laugh hysterical, take photographs with one hand and attempt to lure the goat with grass with the other hand). Tessa and I can barely hold in our giggling as we near their door and so we knock loudly and run behind some shelter. Curtis sleepily opens the door and we bust out laughing. When Tessa and I travel together, we are really like children again—we giggle a lot.
Today is the first completely sunny day in Tofo, which is a relief since I was afraid of going back to Cape Town whiter than I left it. But thus far our time in Tofo has been filled with the sounds of water. The fat plop of heavy rain on a plastic minibus window. The laughter and screams of children just let out of school and walking along the road as we zoom through the massive puddles. The dull dense blank noise of lying underwater as the tide pulls your body out to sea. The best sound has been the constant simplicity of waves crashing—an overlapping crescendo and decrescendo. And sleeping in to the sound of drizzle on the roof of our reed bungalow.
On the day we arrive (March 29, 2007), it is only raining off and on, which adds drama to this paradise—the sun poking out randomly and the glossy reflection of sunshine off a wet, wide green palm leaf. I immediately dive into the Indian Ocean under an early rising moon, the sun simultaneously setting down shore.
Tessa, Brandon, Curtis and I have dinner at a restaurant a short walk down the beach where lightning bolts down over the water, cracking the black sky like an egg. We all run home together in the rain, laughing at the predicament—rain in paradise.
The next day (March 30, 2007), Tessa and I plan to take a long walk on the beach but as we begin the warmth of the ocean water running up against our feet is overpowered by the cold rain and sting of gusts of sand. So we run into a restaurant and wait out the rain.
We only manage to walk down the shore for about 10 minutes, then back the opposite direction into “town”, which consists of a very small food market of roughly 10 women and their tables filled with vegetables and grains. Also there are about 5 women selling fish and some men with craft stalls.
In Tofo, time is measured in sun rises, tides, the breaking of clouds, and the sun set. Everything else is a blank darkness, which one can subdivide as they like. Most of the travelers here are surfers or divers—they generally drink or do copious amounts of drugs. Tessa and I are neither and are content to have a drink, a laugh and head to bed in hopes of better weather the next day.
This tomorrow (March 31, 2007) has nice weather long enough for Tessa and I to take our long walk (roughly 2 hours?), which leads us down the inside curve of the crescent bay. It is good to travel with Tessa because I am able to be all parts of myself around her—the silly, the funny, the sad, the happy, the serious. And our talks are directionless in their flow. It is relaxing and refreshing to spend time with someone who knows you so well and who you know so well.
We make another visit to the market and decide to be bold—we buy prawns, carrots, aubergine (translation for the states: eggplant), onions, garlic, rice, 2 coconuts and oil (which the woman siphons into a tiny plastic bag and ties a knot at the top). Take notes because this meal was delicious!
But before we can be chefs, we first must be swimmers. Just after sunset, the strength of the current, height of the waves and deepening colors of the sky gives the swim a dangerous, taboo feeling. Tessa and I laugh as we play in the waves but we don’t stray too deep, making sure the sand is firmly underneath us.
Brandon and Curtis meet us at the hostel’s outdoor kitchen. Tessa and I spend most of our time shelling and de-veining the shrimp while Curtis uses a wine corkscrew to pop open 2 holes in the coconuts to draw out their milk, and Brandon amuses himself by taking pictures and video of the whole event (specifically all the tiny and not-so-tiny geckos that have gathered near the lantern to catch the insects attracted to the light).
The more time we spend wit Bran and Curtis, the more I truly enjoy their company. At first Tessa and I thought they were the two most freakishly polite boys we had ever met. Then she saw Brandon reading what looked like a evangelical book, so we thought they were missionaries! I said to myself, “Oh crap, they’re going to try to convert me!”—but they didn’t at all. They have been so absolutely sweet—Brandon, especially is so innocent, but very curious and genuine. Curtis is a bit older and not quite as doe-eyed but still completely kind and gentle. His whole presence is relaxing and content.
Today, (April 1, 2007), we all take a “sea safari”, which turns out to be equal parts rollercoaster happiness and rollercoaster nausea. Apparently Mo’bique is known for their whale sharks—which look like sharks but act like whales as they feed on plankton by filtering the water, as well as being harmless to people.
Luckily we’re put on a sea safari that Simon, Tessa’s dive guide who we bumped into in Maputo, is leading. We push the high-speed rubber boat into the water and against the waves. Somehow we manage to jump in just as we get the boat in deep enough so that the motor can be turned on. The driver kicks the engine into high gear as we crash into the crests of the waves head on and over the first wall of water. As we travel further out, the swells become huge and I’m squealing as we fly off each edge. We’re all gripping onto the ropes with white knuckles and soon one of the Tofo Scuba guys is climbing up into a high seat (about 7 feet above the boat) to help spot dark shadows in the clear blue water.
Pretty soon they’ve spotted a whale shark. The boat quickly zooms around in front of it and our fins and masks are on. Plop, plop into the water but the shark gets frightened and dives down deeper into the water.
We’re back on the boat not 5 minutes when a huge manta ray is spotted. Plop, plop. This manta ray is easily larger than I am. It hovers just feet from us for a while as its massive fins roll out to the sides.
The mixture of adrenaline, snorkeling in these huge swells and jumping in and out of the boat causes me to feel a bit nauseas but I steady myself and look towards land (which is what you’re instructed to do if you’re not feeling well since it’s the only point of reference that isn’t actually moving). I’m feeling better soon and enjoying the high speed search. The water is a deep blue and the sun is warm enough to dry us off pretty quickly (at least those not directly in the way of the ocean spray).
Luckily someone spots a school of dolphin nearby but unfortunately, they don’t seem to want to stay and play. We get a few moments glipse of the graceful arch of their backs and soon they’ve dove deep into the water.
A bit later, we’re also in the water, just feet from a “teenage” whale shark, which is roughly 5 or 6 meters. Everyone hovers at a respectful distance. Simon is even able to get some pictures of her underbelly. I don’t think I’ve ever swam with such a large animal before in my life. You float there in tossing sea, in absolute awe of its humbling size.
The rest of the day is uneventful in that lazy summer, beach life manner. Tessa and I make dinner and Curtis and Brandon join us while we eat outside under the cover of tangled vines and starlight.
Friday, April 20, 2007
back to the future: April 20, 2007
While I catch up on posts about my Mozambique/Swaziland trip-- feel free to jump into the present and check out my life through another's eyes! My sista from another papa is visiting me, so check out her blog: http://tresfabfoofoojewelz.blogspot.com/
March 28, 2007: Maputo, Mozambique
I'm awoken by the screaming laughter, rhymes and playing of children. Seems there is a playground next door to our hostel. Up and out, we begin our day.
Before we've arrived in Mo'bique, Tessa explains the currency to me-- apparently they've recently issued new currency where 25 Metacais (pronounced Metacash) is equal to the dollar, but the old currency (also called Metacais) is still in use in coins, so there are 3 extra zero's. Got it? I didn't either. Basically 1000 Meticais = 1 Meticais, 5000 Old Meticais = 5 Meticais, and so on, but there is new currency in coins as well. So much of the day is spent squinting for the print date on the coin in addition to doing the math on the exchange rate.
We start the day with breakfast: 1 bread roll = 2 Meti = 2000 Old Meti = 8 US cents.
We take a minibus down 24 de Junio (the main road) to the Revolution Museum: 5 minute bus ride = 5 Meti = 5000 Old Meti = 25 US cents.
We spend roughly an hour and 1/2 inside the four story museum which is empty, dimly lit and completely in Portuguese. There are some fantastic photographs of training camps in the jungle--in particular there is one black and white photo of a female soldier, standing in a forest in full fatigues, smiling quite hapily. Most of the lights in the museum are either not working or not turned on, so small galleries are lit by the sunlight trickling in from the shaded windows. We explore on our own, taking what we can from the photos and making rough, inaccurate translations.
Revolution Museum = 15 Meti = 15000 Old Meti = 60 US cents.
We wander down the broken sidewalks-- an obstacle course of its own--through an artists square where two men show us around their studios. One man works in ceramics and paints and makes clothing. The second works with leather and is a musician--he proudly plays all his instruments for us.
Next stop: central market. All the streets in Maputo are named after communist leaders which makes for great directions: "Right onto Karl Marx, left onto Ho Chi Minh".
We enter their central market which is dark and damp. The sunlight trickles through the roof and relects off the slimy silver fish lined up for sale. The market women call to you to grab your attention but throw daggers at you with their eyes when you try to take pictures. The street kids ask you for money. No one smiles unless there is a sale.
A man is making basic cheese and bologna sandwiches, so we buy one for ourselves and Tessa buys one for the street boy who has been following her.
1/2 kilo of cashews = 50 Meti = 50000 Old Meti = $2 US
Sandwich = 13 Meti = 13000 Old Meti = 42 cents US
We leave the market and walk towards the train station which I've heard from other backpackers is very nice. The facade is lime green and white, with a dark mahogany wood revolving door like a mouth. I feel I've walked onto a movie set and that I should be tearfully reuniting with or being separated from my soldier boyfriend-- but in Portuguese, maybe with English subtitles. It is a charming building and everyone is friendly to the point of being strange. We sit on the front veranda and eat our lunches, sharing a glass bottle of coca cola and make sure to return the glass bottle to the woman who sold it to us so she can get money for the glass.
Last stop: the French cultural center. I'm not sure why there is a French cultural center in Mozambique since it was the Portuguese who colonized this area, but who am I to judge these nutty, post-colonial realities. We sit in the garden cafe and sip our fresh pear juice while some locals smoke a hookah nearby.
Fresh pear juice = 30 Meti = 30000 Old Meti = $1.20 US-- of course the French cafe is the most expensive!
We meet Joe in front of the hospital and catch a bus north to the fish market at Costa del Sol, where every day the fisherman return around 4:30 p.m. and sell their catches. Fat, jovial men and women sit swatting the flies away from the fish and talk loudly to each other. Tessa buys prawn, Joe buys king fish and I buy calamari. The shopkeepers joke with us as we squirm a bit from the site of the flies and all these strange fish. We ask all kinds of questions on size, prize, freshness in broken spanish/portuguese/french. Behind the market are 5 or 6 restaurants that will cook your fish for you and one man who speaks decent English helps translate the transaction and hooks us into his restaurant.
1 kilo calamari = 100 Meti = 100,000 Old Meti = $4 US
add ons: rice, salad, 1 beer and all the preparation = 140 Meti = 140,000 Old Meti = $5.60 US
We have an absolutely delicious dinner, with great company (minus the guys coming to the table trying to sell us jewelry and all kinds of trinkets) and end up with literally 1/2 the king fish left over, which the restaurant owner didn't seem unhappy about.
Off to bed for an early bus ride in the morning to Tofo!
Before we've arrived in Mo'bique, Tessa explains the currency to me-- apparently they've recently issued new currency where 25 Metacais (pronounced Metacash) is equal to the dollar, but the old currency (also called Metacais) is still in use in coins, so there are 3 extra zero's. Got it? I didn't either. Basically 1000 Meticais = 1 Meticais, 5000 Old Meticais = 5 Meticais, and so on, but there is new currency in coins as well. So much of the day is spent squinting for the print date on the coin in addition to doing the math on the exchange rate.
We start the day with breakfast: 1 bread roll = 2 Meti = 2000 Old Meti = 8 US cents.
We take a minibus down 24 de Junio (the main road) to the Revolution Museum: 5 minute bus ride = 5 Meti = 5000 Old Meti = 25 US cents.
We spend roughly an hour and 1/2 inside the four story museum which is empty, dimly lit and completely in Portuguese. There are some fantastic photographs of training camps in the jungle--in particular there is one black and white photo of a female soldier, standing in a forest in full fatigues, smiling quite hapily. Most of the lights in the museum are either not working or not turned on, so small galleries are lit by the sunlight trickling in from the shaded windows. We explore on our own, taking what we can from the photos and making rough, inaccurate translations.
Revolution Museum = 15 Meti = 15000 Old Meti = 60 US cents.
We wander down the broken sidewalks-- an obstacle course of its own--through an artists square where two men show us around their studios. One man works in ceramics and paints and makes clothing. The second works with leather and is a musician--he proudly plays all his instruments for us.
Next stop: central market. All the streets in Maputo are named after communist leaders which makes for great directions: "Right onto Karl Marx, left onto Ho Chi Minh".
We enter their central market which is dark and damp. The sunlight trickles through the roof and relects off the slimy silver fish lined up for sale. The market women call to you to grab your attention but throw daggers at you with their eyes when you try to take pictures. The street kids ask you for money. No one smiles unless there is a sale.
A man is making basic cheese and bologna sandwiches, so we buy one for ourselves and Tessa buys one for the street boy who has been following her.
1/2 kilo of cashews = 50 Meti = 50000 Old Meti = $2 US
Sandwich = 13 Meti = 13000 Old Meti = 42 cents US
We leave the market and walk towards the train station which I've heard from other backpackers is very nice. The facade is lime green and white, with a dark mahogany wood revolving door like a mouth. I feel I've walked onto a movie set and that I should be tearfully reuniting with or being separated from my soldier boyfriend-- but in Portuguese, maybe with English subtitles. It is a charming building and everyone is friendly to the point of being strange. We sit on the front veranda and eat our lunches, sharing a glass bottle of coca cola and make sure to return the glass bottle to the woman who sold it to us so she can get money for the glass.
Last stop: the French cultural center. I'm not sure why there is a French cultural center in Mozambique since it was the Portuguese who colonized this area, but who am I to judge these nutty, post-colonial realities. We sit in the garden cafe and sip our fresh pear juice while some locals smoke a hookah nearby.
Fresh pear juice = 30 Meti = 30000 Old Meti = $1.20 US-- of course the French cafe is the most expensive!
We meet Joe in front of the hospital and catch a bus north to the fish market at Costa del Sol, where every day the fisherman return around 4:30 p.m. and sell their catches. Fat, jovial men and women sit swatting the flies away from the fish and talk loudly to each other. Tessa buys prawn, Joe buys king fish and I buy calamari. The shopkeepers joke with us as we squirm a bit from the site of the flies and all these strange fish. We ask all kinds of questions on size, prize, freshness in broken spanish/portuguese/french. Behind the market are 5 or 6 restaurants that will cook your fish for you and one man who speaks decent English helps translate the transaction and hooks us into his restaurant.
1 kilo calamari = 100 Meti = 100,000 Old Meti = $4 US
add ons: rice, salad, 1 beer and all the preparation = 140 Meti = 140,000 Old Meti = $5.60 US
We have an absolutely delicious dinner, with great company (minus the guys coming to the table trying to sell us jewelry and all kinds of trinkets) and end up with literally 1/2 the king fish left over, which the restaurant owner didn't seem unhappy about.
Off to bed for an early bus ride in the morning to Tofo!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Monday, April 9, 2007
March 27, 2007: Maputo, Mozambique
To get to Mozambique, Tessa and I take a relatively uneventful 5:30 a.m. bus from Pretoria. We notice that at the last gas station before the border, everyone is buying massive amounts of eggs (which they don't refrigerate here). Seems eggs are double the price in Mo'bique. Tessa and I consider starting an egg trade but reconsider since we're not that passionate about the import/export business.
Crossing into Mo'bique is pretty sweet because for about a quarter of a mile you're not in any country at all. Your bus arrives at the border and you must get off and go into a building which is split down the middle. Each side is a mirror image of the other-- it is the immigration/emigration building of each country. You hand your passport to some lady in head-to-toe khaki military garb who will then ignore you completely, flip open to a page in your passport, and stamp something while not look-- all the while continuing her conversation with the other officers.
Then, in the midday sun, you take a walk up a dirt road that is no man's land to go to Mozambique. On this road you will find immigration officers sitting together in the shade people watching, as well as some of your fellow travelers carrying their belongings on their heads-- though not everyone seems to walk across. In fact more than a few never seemed to enter the offices and as the bus drove by us to pick us up on the other side, I thought-- are we caught in an illegal egg ring? I've watched enough Sopranos to know when to keep my mouth shut, so we quietly waited on line at the immigration half of the building to pay 17 more Rand (egg tax?) and get an entry stamp (I now officially only have 4 pages left in my passport and still 3 more years till it expires-- high five worthy!)
Back on the bus, I spend most of my time attempting to write but end up producing chicken scratch. Tessa and I play games with two little girls who are also riding the bus (roughly 3 and 4 years old?) I give the older one my pencil and she happily scribbles on and inside my Chinua Achebe novel. I encourage her-- why shouldn't novels be coloring books? If she doesn't mind, then why should I? So we have a lot of fun together--but by 5 p.m. we're arrived in Maputo.
My first impression of Maputo is that this is the Havana of my imagination-- a dilapidated paradise. At some point in time there was a sufficient amount of money invested in this city-- by the architecture, I estimate the 60s or the 70s-- but there has been no investment since. So the structures of the buildings are frozen in that moment-- a kind of optimistic resort architecture in the vision of Portuguese colonialism. But time and history interrupts this narrative-- the liberation occurs, the money leaves, the time passes, the people stay, the buildings are abandoned and sometimes reclaimed by locals but never in their original imagination. The beauty is not in the remnants of the first vision but in the continued use or a faded cityscape functioning as the backdrop for some unintended vibrant life.
And even the action can throw you into what seems like another time-- a couple walks hand in hand through the faded glory of a railway station, old men playing chess on the sidewalk with bottle caps, school kids in wide 70s-style slacks.
We check into the hostel where we bump into Tessa's dive instructor from Tofo, Simon-- who is passing through to leave the country just to return and get a new visa stamp so he can continue working. We also meet Joe-- a terribly funny British guy who does research on early warning systems. We four go to a new Mozambican restaurant and I have a delicious traditional dish "Matapo con carangueijo"-- pounded cassava leaves with peanut flour and coconut milk with 2 crab claws. Yum.
We comfortably walk along the pitch dark streets and Tessa and I realize that there are women walking home alone. It is a nice sight and I realize how relaxed I feel. The moist air, the broken sidewalks, the radiating neon from a corner store-- it envelopes you. We grab some coffee and share two pieces of chocolate cake before heading back to the hostel.
Crossing into Mo'bique is pretty sweet because for about a quarter of a mile you're not in any country at all. Your bus arrives at the border and you must get off and go into a building which is split down the middle. Each side is a mirror image of the other-- it is the immigration/emigration building of each country. You hand your passport to some lady in head-to-toe khaki military garb who will then ignore you completely, flip open to a page in your passport, and stamp something while not look-- all the while continuing her conversation with the other officers.
Then, in the midday sun, you take a walk up a dirt road that is no man's land to go to Mozambique. On this road you will find immigration officers sitting together in the shade people watching, as well as some of your fellow travelers carrying their belongings on their heads-- though not everyone seems to walk across. In fact more than a few never seemed to enter the offices and as the bus drove by us to pick us up on the other side, I thought-- are we caught in an illegal egg ring? I've watched enough Sopranos to know when to keep my mouth shut, so we quietly waited on line at the immigration half of the building to pay 17 more Rand (egg tax?) and get an entry stamp (I now officially only have 4 pages left in my passport and still 3 more years till it expires-- high five worthy!)
Back on the bus, I spend most of my time attempting to write but end up producing chicken scratch. Tessa and I play games with two little girls who are also riding the bus (roughly 3 and 4 years old?) I give the older one my pencil and she happily scribbles on and inside my Chinua Achebe novel. I encourage her-- why shouldn't novels be coloring books? If she doesn't mind, then why should I? So we have a lot of fun together--but by 5 p.m. we're arrived in Maputo.
My first impression of Maputo is that this is the Havana of my imagination-- a dilapidated paradise. At some point in time there was a sufficient amount of money invested in this city-- by the architecture, I estimate the 60s or the 70s-- but there has been no investment since. So the structures of the buildings are frozen in that moment-- a kind of optimistic resort architecture in the vision of Portuguese colonialism. But time and history interrupts this narrative-- the liberation occurs, the money leaves, the time passes, the people stay, the buildings are abandoned and sometimes reclaimed by locals but never in their original imagination. The beauty is not in the remnants of the first vision but in the continued use or a faded cityscape functioning as the backdrop for some unintended vibrant life.
And even the action can throw you into what seems like another time-- a couple walks hand in hand through the faded glory of a railway station, old men playing chess on the sidewalk with bottle caps, school kids in wide 70s-style slacks.
We check into the hostel where we bump into Tessa's dive instructor from Tofo, Simon-- who is passing through to leave the country just to return and get a new visa stamp so he can continue working. We also meet Joe-- a terribly funny British guy who does research on early warning systems. We four go to a new Mozambican restaurant and I have a delicious traditional dish "Matapo con carangueijo"-- pounded cassava leaves with peanut flour and coconut milk with 2 crab claws. Yum.
We comfortably walk along the pitch dark streets and Tessa and I realize that there are women walking home alone. It is a nice sight and I realize how relaxed I feel. The moist air, the broken sidewalks, the radiating neon from a corner store-- it envelopes you. We grab some coffee and share two pieces of chocolate cake before heading back to the hostel.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
March 24, 2007: Soweto
Today, March 24th, is Tessa’s 26th birthday and she has decided to celebrate it in Soweto, which is a township outside of Johannesburg. Tessa, whose capacity to organize community events is unmatched by anyone I know, began working with her friend Gino and a non-profit called S.K.Y. (Soweto Kliptown Youth) to have an event. Tessa and I had been planning on travelling during my Easter break and since her birthday was so close I decided to leave Cape Town a week early, extend my break and celebrate her birthday with her. Lightbulbs appeared above Tessa’s head, knocking around the halo for a moment. She asked me if I would want to perform for some kids in Soweto and of course I said yes... and then the organizing began. Tessa’s Dutch friend Tikvah, who is teaching in Pretoria for a few months, plays guitar and so her and I had been exchanging emails—“What songs do you know?” “How about this song?” “Sorry, I’ve never heard of that musician.” “Really!? That’s not popular in the states?” and on and on, until finally we decided on the set list: “Sing” and “Lemon Tree” by Travis, “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley, “Heart and Shoulder” by Heather Nova, and “One” by U2.
So yesterday, Tessa, Tikvah and Grace (Tessa’s friend from Uganda) picked me up at the Johannesburg airport and we returned to Tessa’s apartment and ran through the songs. Ouch! Wake up call for Nathalie—I need to start singing more often here. But we managed and were pretty optimistic about what Tessa came to name: “International Music Day: Kliptown”.
Tessa pulled some money together from her organization Cucu (www.cucu4children.nl) and bought cartons of bananas, apples and oranges and 3 great, big, chocolate cakes! She also rallied a few of the international students she was friendly with to come along with us to Soweto to see the township and share in the experience.
Before we set out for Soweto, Tessa receives a call from Gino’s girlfriend—a friend of his from Soweto has been shotand killed, so he won’t be organizing the day. A warning? A sign? We all look at each other unsure and call SKY to see if we can still bring food and play a few songs. Bob, the founder of SKY gives us that relaxed African invitation as through Kliptown was his living room—and it sort of is, as we’ll see children run about his driveway, hang out on the back patio and peer curiously into the kitchen.
Packed up, the caravan sets out—Tessa, myself, August (from Ghana), Grace (from Uganda) in one car and the Dutch car: Camille, Manuel, Tikvah, Esther and Melissa. We were led to Kliptown by Papi—one of the men from Kliptown who works with SKY. The city of Johannesburg fades into the background as the city highway turns into road, turns into unrepaired pavement, into a brick red mud alleyway alongside train tracks. We enter the labyrinth of Kliptown driving slower and slower at each step to soften the dips into the potholes or avoid a group of children until we are crawling along. A parade of outsiders? A caravan of voyeurs? We are witnesses but also being watched. WE are a spectacle—as we drive through some people gossip, some children smile and wave, some kids give us the stare. I’ve seen this stare before in Khayelitsha and I’ve yet to understand fully what goes on behind those eyes.
Finally we arrive at the SKY building, park, meet and greet, then set out for the recreation building which is a short walk from the SKY house. The sun had started poking through the clouds and the mud began to dry as we leisurely strolled through the Kliptown streets—a boy pushes a smaller boy on a very old bike, a soccer game erupts in the wide point of the road, music blares from a delapitated shack, a local boy scares one of the Dutch girls with a rubber snake, some curious kids join our walking group, a few men stand over a rusting bbq that has scrap peices of chicken grilling. There is life here. There is trash strewn everywhere, the children are dirty, the rusting walls of each shack nearly touch eachother but there is life in this place—and this life may be more real than a lot of the life and culture of other places I’ve travelled to. I am happy because although I am a visitor, I don’t feel like a tourist.
We enter the large, colorful recreation room whose walls are filled with books and posters of NBA players (the NBA sponsors SKY and build the rec room a few years back). By now, roughly 50 kids have gathered. But before our performance, we receive a surprised gift from SKY—they’ve arranged for the “flowers of Kliptown”, a children’s dance troop that performs all over South Africa to make money and promote SKY, to perform for the community’s kids and us.
Two young teenage girls take a seat with their drums and they begin pounding out a fast beat. A tiny girl explodes from the side door and begins dancing, expertly twisting and turning each limb. A tiny boy follows her and they act out a little lovers quarrel until she motions for her girlfriends to join her. A dozen girls, all in pink flirty skits and matching bandeau tops run out into the center of the room. They dance in a messy unison that is at once disciplined and fun and free. Their tiny bodies and the boom of the drum beat together until they are mockingly run offstage by the boys’ group, who wear old, oversized fisherman’s boots. The boys begin to drum their own beat by stomping and slapping their boots. The sound bursts from their small hands and these tiny men tease the girls until both join together and the room is filed with their energy.
All the kids applaud and we also holler and clap for these amazing children. I am truly impressed by the way they gave all of their energy to the dance—you could see it in the beads of sweat on their foreheads, the stomping easily heard from far away, and the strength of the kicking leg or control and technique of the swirling hip. I felt honored to have such a performance given to us. Last, the maestro had all the kids sing “Happy Birthday” to Tessa and Tikvah (who was turning 25).
Next up was our performance. Tessa had made some copies of the lyrics so that the kids could sin galong if they wanted. At first shy, it took a lot of encouragement and repetition to cajole them into singing or clapping along, but soon they go tinto it—singing the chorus to the Travis song: “For the love you bring, won’t mean a thing unless you sing, sing, sing”.
We also invited two of the kids who had been playing around with the guitar and drum to play a song with us. Tessa had all the kids stand up and we sang Marley’s “Three Little Birds” together (a universal classic). We all began to dance and sing and laugh together in a circle. It was a great time.
Afterwards we went back to the SKY house and gave out an apple, an orange, a banana and a piece of chocolate cake to each child. Papo wanted to take us around Kliptown but we ended up spending most of our time at a shabeen in a nicer area of Soweto. A shabeen is someone’s house that they’ve made into a restaurant or bar. A mixture of soul music, American and African jazz pumped on the patio and we were welcomed by the whole family: Joe was the dad and owner, his wife was the chef and the two younger daughters were the waitresses.
I was standing in the front yard talking to a few people when Papi came up to me and pointed to this small old lady sitting in a dark corner, a felt hat tilted stylishly on her head. He asked if I know who it is-- I look again and she looks back at me, two bright wide eyes peering out from the shadow under her hat. "That's Tandi Klaasen--she's a famous jazz singer. Come over and meet her". We walk over and Papi says to Thandi-- "This is Nathalie, she's a singer too. She has the voice of an angel. She sang for the kids today". Rhandi, roughly 70 or so, stands up to shake my hand and begins asking me about my music!
Throughout the night we talk sporadically about music and life. She started singing in Soweto and doing shows with various jazz acts, eventually singing with the likes of Miriam Makeba (one of my mother's favorite singers). One night after a show, she was leaving a club when some men threw chemicals on her that burned the skin on her face (there are some conflicting stories about why this exactly happened-- including from Thandi herself. Some say it was racially motivated, some say there was a love triangle and this was revenge). But there was triumph in her voice. I know because she sang for us that night. She said that she thought it was beautiful that young people were coming into the townships and crossing boundaries-- everyone was really quite surprised to see such an international mix of young students (white and black) at a shabeen.
So before we left she sang a Xhosa song for us that is traditionally meant to be sung when friends are leaving. Everyone gathered around--foreigners and locals together-- in a circle around her. She lowered her head and it seemed her voice rose from under her and her arms floated out to the sides as the melody announced itself. She is a true performer. The drama in her swelling voice and slow movements captured your attention completely-- we were all hers for those few moments, standing in Soweto, inside its history and its song.
So yesterday, Tessa, Tikvah and Grace (Tessa’s friend from Uganda) picked me up at the Johannesburg airport and we returned to Tessa’s apartment and ran through the songs. Ouch! Wake up call for Nathalie—I need to start singing more often here. But we managed and were pretty optimistic about what Tessa came to name: “International Music Day: Kliptown”.
Tessa pulled some money together from her organization Cucu (www.cucu4children.nl) and bought cartons of bananas, apples and oranges and 3 great, big, chocolate cakes! She also rallied a few of the international students she was friendly with to come along with us to Soweto to see the township and share in the experience.
Before we set out for Soweto, Tessa receives a call from Gino’s girlfriend—a friend of his from Soweto has been shotand killed, so he won’t be organizing the day. A warning? A sign? We all look at each other unsure and call SKY to see if we can still bring food and play a few songs. Bob, the founder of SKY gives us that relaxed African invitation as through Kliptown was his living room—and it sort of is, as we’ll see children run about his driveway, hang out on the back patio and peer curiously into the kitchen.
Packed up, the caravan sets out—Tessa, myself, August (from Ghana), Grace (from Uganda) in one car and the Dutch car: Camille, Manuel, Tikvah, Esther and Melissa. We were led to Kliptown by Papi—one of the men from Kliptown who works with SKY. The city of Johannesburg fades into the background as the city highway turns into road, turns into unrepaired pavement, into a brick red mud alleyway alongside train tracks. We enter the labyrinth of Kliptown driving slower and slower at each step to soften the dips into the potholes or avoid a group of children until we are crawling along. A parade of outsiders? A caravan of voyeurs? We are witnesses but also being watched. WE are a spectacle—as we drive through some people gossip, some children smile and wave, some kids give us the stare. I’ve seen this stare before in Khayelitsha and I’ve yet to understand fully what goes on behind those eyes.
Finally we arrive at the SKY building, park, meet and greet, then set out for the recreation building which is a short walk from the SKY house. The sun had started poking through the clouds and the mud began to dry as we leisurely strolled through the Kliptown streets—a boy pushes a smaller boy on a very old bike, a soccer game erupts in the wide point of the road, music blares from a delapitated shack, a local boy scares one of the Dutch girls with a rubber snake, some curious kids join our walking group, a few men stand over a rusting bbq that has scrap peices of chicken grilling. There is life here. There is trash strewn everywhere, the children are dirty, the rusting walls of each shack nearly touch eachother but there is life in this place—and this life may be more real than a lot of the life and culture of other places I’ve travelled to. I am happy because although I am a visitor, I don’t feel like a tourist.
We enter the large, colorful recreation room whose walls are filled with books and posters of NBA players (the NBA sponsors SKY and build the rec room a few years back). By now, roughly 50 kids have gathered. But before our performance, we receive a surprised gift from SKY—they’ve arranged for the “flowers of Kliptown”, a children’s dance troop that performs all over South Africa to make money and promote SKY, to perform for the community’s kids and us.
Two young teenage girls take a seat with their drums and they begin pounding out a fast beat. A tiny girl explodes from the side door and begins dancing, expertly twisting and turning each limb. A tiny boy follows her and they act out a little lovers quarrel until she motions for her girlfriends to join her. A dozen girls, all in pink flirty skits and matching bandeau tops run out into the center of the room. They dance in a messy unison that is at once disciplined and fun and free. Their tiny bodies and the boom of the drum beat together until they are mockingly run offstage by the boys’ group, who wear old, oversized fisherman’s boots. The boys begin to drum their own beat by stomping and slapping their boots. The sound bursts from their small hands and these tiny men tease the girls until both join together and the room is filed with their energy.
All the kids applaud and we also holler and clap for these amazing children. I am truly impressed by the way they gave all of their energy to the dance—you could see it in the beads of sweat on their foreheads, the stomping easily heard from far away, and the strength of the kicking leg or control and technique of the swirling hip. I felt honored to have such a performance given to us. Last, the maestro had all the kids sing “Happy Birthday” to Tessa and Tikvah (who was turning 25).
Next up was our performance. Tessa had made some copies of the lyrics so that the kids could sin galong if they wanted. At first shy, it took a lot of encouragement and repetition to cajole them into singing or clapping along, but soon they go tinto it—singing the chorus to the Travis song: “For the love you bring, won’t mean a thing unless you sing, sing, sing”.
We also invited two of the kids who had been playing around with the guitar and drum to play a song with us. Tessa had all the kids stand up and we sang Marley’s “Three Little Birds” together (a universal classic). We all began to dance and sing and laugh together in a circle. It was a great time.
Afterwards we went back to the SKY house and gave out an apple, an orange, a banana and a piece of chocolate cake to each child. Papo wanted to take us around Kliptown but we ended up spending most of our time at a shabeen in a nicer area of Soweto. A shabeen is someone’s house that they’ve made into a restaurant or bar. A mixture of soul music, American and African jazz pumped on the patio and we were welcomed by the whole family: Joe was the dad and owner, his wife was the chef and the two younger daughters were the waitresses.
I was standing in the front yard talking to a few people when Papi came up to me and pointed to this small old lady sitting in a dark corner, a felt hat tilted stylishly on her head. He asked if I know who it is-- I look again and she looks back at me, two bright wide eyes peering out from the shadow under her hat. "That's Tandi Klaasen--she's a famous jazz singer. Come over and meet her". We walk over and Papi says to Thandi-- "This is Nathalie, she's a singer too. She has the voice of an angel. She sang for the kids today". Rhandi, roughly 70 or so, stands up to shake my hand and begins asking me about my music!
Throughout the night we talk sporadically about music and life. She started singing in Soweto and doing shows with various jazz acts, eventually singing with the likes of Miriam Makeba (one of my mother's favorite singers). One night after a show, she was leaving a club when some men threw chemicals on her that burned the skin on her face (there are some conflicting stories about why this exactly happened-- including from Thandi herself. Some say it was racially motivated, some say there was a love triangle and this was revenge). But there was triumph in her voice. I know because she sang for us that night. She said that she thought it was beautiful that young people were coming into the townships and crossing boundaries-- everyone was really quite surprised to see such an international mix of young students (white and black) at a shabeen.
So before we left she sang a Xhosa song for us that is traditionally meant to be sung when friends are leaving. Everyone gathered around--foreigners and locals together-- in a circle around her. She lowered her head and it seemed her voice rose from under her and her arms floated out to the sides as the melody announced itself. She is a true performer. The drama in her swelling voice and slow movements captured your attention completely-- we were all hers for those few moments, standing in Soweto, inside its history and its song.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
March 16, 2007: Kaapstad!
Chimurenga: Shona for “Struggle”
When I set out for South Africa, I made myself one promise-- to take advantage of all the opportunities available to me. And why not make a few opportunities available to me if they didn’t exactly present themselves?
A seed was planted when a fellow student introduced me to a magazine that focused on certain areas that I was interested in academically. Chimurenga (www.chimurenga.co.za) is a publication of art, culture and politics from and about Africa and its Diasporas. Consciously Pan-African, the range of material is expansive, the voice is definitively radical and each issue captures a critical and controversial theme.
I emailed them my resume and a cover letter explaining my interest. Soon after I received an email back from the editor, Ntone, and we set up a time to meet the next week.
I put on my most respectable outfit (conservative black skirt, button down shirt and heels—tres Banana Republic) and hopped a minibus (nearly broken-down vans crammed with passengers and pumping house music that serve as unofficial public transportation for the whole metropolitan area) into the center of “Kaapstad!” (Afrikaans for Cape Town and what the locals yell out the minibuses to lure passengers aboard)
Finding my way to Long Street—a wide, one-way street lined with cafes, bookstores and bohemian hang-outs—I wandered to the Pan-African Market, which is a three floor building filled with traders selling various arts and artifacts. Chimurenga shares the top floor with a few of these traders and an art gallery. The whole building is overripe with color and by the time I’ve reached the office, my face is also red from the afternoon heat.
I knock on one door, hear,“come in” and am greeted by five painters at their canvases in a cramped studio. Visibly surprised, I apologize and ask for Chimurenga. They all laugh and tell me to go next door but to come back afterwards. I laugh and say maybe I will.
So one door down, I’m greeted by Ntone, the editor, and Rucera, the administrator. Ntone and I hit it off immediately— our conversation spans from publishing to Foucault to New York to feminist theory to French. I’m in absolute awe of this man-- a political activist from Cameroon who began this magazine two years ago completely on his own.
Now each Thursday I travel to the office (where the traders are beginning to recognize me bit by bit and I no longer wear respectable skirts but instead throw on a t-shirt and jeans), and get lost in words. The day stretches out and I enter the myriad that is becoming the upcoming issue, tentatively titled “Conversations With Poets Who Refuse to Speak”:
“An issue on silence and its uses - so much has been said about speech: speaking up, speaking for oneself, not being allowed to speak, speaking for the other who'd rather speak for self, but very little is said about the virtue of silence. So much said about making oneself visible, but little said about mining the rich depths of absence. This issue is about silence, disappearing oneself as act. Though it's often one of abdication, could it be defiance, resistance even? - a challenging idea, in a culture where struggle about seeking exposure, giving voice, making visible and all that stuff...”
Here now, in the office, I type away to the foreign sounds of the city street below me-- completely unlike that of Manhattan where there is order to the noise in some way or at least NYC is a chaos I'm acquainted with. Ntone usually tumbles in around 3 pm, at times I sit here alone, which I relish. To have a private space where I can get inside the work or my own thoughts is a blessing.
But I don’t feel disconnected-- there is always some percussion rising from the street below, a bell or horn or the clicking of tongues. The afternoon sun bounces off the windows of the building across the street from us and lands on the left side of my face, splitting my reflection in two on my computer screen. The walls burst from the heat and the shade of orange they are painted—unhesitatingly gesturing its contents. To paint every one of your walls a bright, robust orange is to say , to shout, "This place is no accident, this place is on purpose, this place has a distinct voice and character and does not ask for approval".
But there is room here, it is not overcrowded with righteousness or ideology or intellectualism-- the high ceilings and the sparse furniture give that feeling. And the windows are always wide open, the small fan always blowing the soft hot air across me. There are no bars on the windows here—another blessing of sorts. Of course, we are three stories up.
The walls are punctuated by newspaper articles, next to blown-up pictures from the magazine, next to political rally posters, next to promotional posters for Reggae shows. Some in English, some in French, I try to decipher their messages, which in either language can be equally opaque: "Quelques questions sure la representation du corps 'africain' sure les scenes occidentales". My French starts and stops..."Some questions on the representation of the "African" body in Western scenes"?
And I'm exhausted by the translation-- of it all. To translate this world into a world I understand. To translate the street into a street I can navigate. To translate the expressions of each person into a smile or a sneer. These are the things that I am undone by.
This place—no, it is in particular my path to Chimu: the heat off the skin of the passengers from the cramped minibus, the tangled maze of the bus station, the earthy smells from the street markets, the bustle of city sidewalks, the lazy business of the traders in our building waiting for customers, the heartbreaking paintings at the top of the stairs—it is beautiful/ugly in the way that I know NYC can be as well. That element comforts me in its familiarity.
When I set out for South Africa, I made myself one promise-- to take advantage of all the opportunities available to me. And why not make a few opportunities available to me if they didn’t exactly present themselves?
A seed was planted when a fellow student introduced me to a magazine that focused on certain areas that I was interested in academically. Chimurenga (www.chimurenga.co.za) is a publication of art, culture and politics from and about Africa and its Diasporas. Consciously Pan-African, the range of material is expansive, the voice is definitively radical and each issue captures a critical and controversial theme.
I emailed them my resume and a cover letter explaining my interest. Soon after I received an email back from the editor, Ntone, and we set up a time to meet the next week.
I put on my most respectable outfit (conservative black skirt, button down shirt and heels—tres Banana Republic) and hopped a minibus (nearly broken-down vans crammed with passengers and pumping house music that serve as unofficial public transportation for the whole metropolitan area) into the center of “Kaapstad!” (Afrikaans for Cape Town and what the locals yell out the minibuses to lure passengers aboard)
Finding my way to Long Street—a wide, one-way street lined with cafes, bookstores and bohemian hang-outs—I wandered to the Pan-African Market, which is a three floor building filled with traders selling various arts and artifacts. Chimurenga shares the top floor with a few of these traders and an art gallery. The whole building is overripe with color and by the time I’ve reached the office, my face is also red from the afternoon heat.
I knock on one door, hear,“come in” and am greeted by five painters at their canvases in a cramped studio. Visibly surprised, I apologize and ask for Chimurenga. They all laugh and tell me to go next door but to come back afterwards. I laugh and say maybe I will.
So one door down, I’m greeted by Ntone, the editor, and Rucera, the administrator. Ntone and I hit it off immediately— our conversation spans from publishing to Foucault to New York to feminist theory to French. I’m in absolute awe of this man-- a political activist from Cameroon who began this magazine two years ago completely on his own.
Now each Thursday I travel to the office (where the traders are beginning to recognize me bit by bit and I no longer wear respectable skirts but instead throw on a t-shirt and jeans), and get lost in words. The day stretches out and I enter the myriad that is becoming the upcoming issue, tentatively titled “Conversations With Poets Who Refuse to Speak”:
“An issue on silence and its uses - so much has been said about speech: speaking up, speaking for oneself, not being allowed to speak, speaking for the other who'd rather speak for self, but very little is said about the virtue of silence. So much said about making oneself visible, but little said about mining the rich depths of absence. This issue is about silence, disappearing oneself as act. Though it's often one of abdication, could it be defiance, resistance even? - a challenging idea, in a culture where struggle about seeking exposure, giving voice, making visible and all that stuff...”
Here now, in the office, I type away to the foreign sounds of the city street below me-- completely unlike that of Manhattan where there is order to the noise in some way or at least NYC is a chaos I'm acquainted with. Ntone usually tumbles in around 3 pm, at times I sit here alone, which I relish. To have a private space where I can get inside the work or my own thoughts is a blessing.
But I don’t feel disconnected-- there is always some percussion rising from the street below, a bell or horn or the clicking of tongues. The afternoon sun bounces off the windows of the building across the street from us and lands on the left side of my face, splitting my reflection in two on my computer screen. The walls burst from the heat and the shade of orange they are painted—unhesitatingly gesturing its contents. To paint every one of your walls a bright, robust orange is to say , to shout, "This place is no accident, this place is on purpose, this place has a distinct voice and character and does not ask for approval".
But there is room here, it is not overcrowded with righteousness or ideology or intellectualism-- the high ceilings and the sparse furniture give that feeling. And the windows are always wide open, the small fan always blowing the soft hot air across me. There are no bars on the windows here—another blessing of sorts. Of course, we are three stories up.
The walls are punctuated by newspaper articles, next to blown-up pictures from the magazine, next to political rally posters, next to promotional posters for Reggae shows. Some in English, some in French, I try to decipher their messages, which in either language can be equally opaque: "Quelques questions sure la representation du corps 'africain' sure les scenes occidentales". My French starts and stops..."Some questions on the representation of the "African" body in Western scenes"?
And I'm exhausted by the translation-- of it all. To translate this world into a world I understand. To translate the street into a street I can navigate. To translate the expressions of each person into a smile or a sneer. These are the things that I am undone by.
This place—no, it is in particular my path to Chimu: the heat off the skin of the passengers from the cramped minibus, the tangled maze of the bus station, the earthy smells from the street markets, the bustle of city sidewalks, the lazy business of the traders in our building waiting for customers, the heartbreaking paintings at the top of the stairs—it is beautiful/ugly in the way that I know NYC can be as well. That element comforts me in its familiarity.
March 11, 2007, Newlands House
Truth in Translation
The director of my academic program at UCT arranged for the students to see Truth in Translation, a play about the Truth and Reconciliation Council (TRC) as told through the perspectives of the translators.
To give you some background, the TRC was a court-like body assembled after the end of apartheid. Anyone who felt they had been a victim of violence could come forward and be heard. On the flip side, perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and ask for forgiveness, as well as amnesty from prosecution. Though it was flawed in particular ways, I think it is a particularly generous gesture towards reconciliation that speaks to the progressive way in which South Africa is striving to become a unified country.
While a few of us were waiting in the foyer of UCT’s Baxter Theatre to enter the play, we noticed a bunch of TV cameras following a group of people. As we got closer to see what was being filmed, we realized that at the center of the lights and cameras was Reverend Desmond Tutu. Reverend Tutu is a South African activist who is reknowned worldwide for the work he has done in opposition of apartheid. In 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and has recently put his efforts towards stopping the global AIDS epidemic. Another major claim to fame is that he is generally credited with coining “Rainbow Nation” as a metaphor for what post-apartheid South Africa might become under ANC leadership.
AND he also headed the TRC. To sit in the audience watching this play, all the while knowing this man—the embodiment of hope in South Africa—was just rows ahead of us, was amazing and exhausting. The genius of retelling the TRC story through the perspectives of the translators was that you heard a whole country’s pains through the translators—speaking in first person and trying so desperately to stay objective, to merely translate the victim’s or perpetrator’s words… which was essentially an impossibility, it was asking them to be inhuman.
After the play therewas a Q&A where Reverend Tutu spoke with the cast, as well as lead a prayer. It was indeed an unexpected and blessed evening.
The director of my academic program at UCT arranged for the students to see Truth in Translation, a play about the Truth and Reconciliation Council (TRC) as told through the perspectives of the translators.
To give you some background, the TRC was a court-like body assembled after the end of apartheid. Anyone who felt they had been a victim of violence could come forward and be heard. On the flip side, perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and ask for forgiveness, as well as amnesty from prosecution. Though it was flawed in particular ways, I think it is a particularly generous gesture towards reconciliation that speaks to the progressive way in which South Africa is striving to become a unified country.
While a few of us were waiting in the foyer of UCT’s Baxter Theatre to enter the play, we noticed a bunch of TV cameras following a group of people. As we got closer to see what was being filmed, we realized that at the center of the lights and cameras was Reverend Desmond Tutu. Reverend Tutu is a South African activist who is reknowned worldwide for the work he has done in opposition of apartheid. In 1984 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and has recently put his efforts towards stopping the global AIDS epidemic. Another major claim to fame is that he is generally credited with coining “Rainbow Nation” as a metaphor for what post-apartheid South Africa might become under ANC leadership.
AND he also headed the TRC. To sit in the audience watching this play, all the while knowing this man—the embodiment of hope in South Africa—was just rows ahead of us, was amazing and exhausting. The genius of retelling the TRC story through the perspectives of the translators was that you heard a whole country’s pains through the translators—speaking in first person and trying so desperately to stay objective, to merely translate the victim’s or perpetrator’s words… which was essentially an impossibility, it was asking them to be inhuman.
After the play therewas a Q&A where Reverend Tutu spoke with the cast, as well as lead a prayer. It was indeed an unexpected and blessed evening.
Monday, March 12, 2007
March 4, 2007, Newlands House, 21:36
Sitembile, is a UCT student who volunteers with SHAWCO and coordinates the arts program. She has a strong energy—she is positive but no-nonsense. I still hear the righteous irritation in her voice when she advised us in our orientation—“Whatever you do, do NOT pity these kids. They are kids, like any others—so treat them that way”.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
February 20, 2007, 7:26 p.m., UCT Library
The Taoist philosopher, Lao Tzu is quoted as writing “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving”. I think I have been half guilty of aiming for a certain destination when I planned this trip.
In many ways I can be a romantic. I can certainly be an idealist when it comes to traveling. This is due in part to my previous travels and to my upbringing, as well as having the wealth and relative security of the
From my previous logs I think it is obvious that there has been a certain negative element of this trip that was unexpected. But, it has been my task to figure out for myself how to read Cape Town, with what eyes will I see this place—will I see it as a traveler? A student? A westerner? A woman? A white person? An American? In the end, what will this place mean to me? What will I mean to this place?
So in the past week I have taken a renewed, more proactive approach which has shifted the experience in a much more positive direction. It is important that I document this part as well. So the following may be somewhat random—polaroids of moments that I think fill in the black and white with color.
Diversity Program
As you may or may not know, I am studying in the Sociology Department (http://www.soc.uct.ac.za/ ) under the Diversity Program (http://incudisa.uct.ac.za/index.php?page=UCT_diver_studies). The intention of the program is to reflect on the politics of difference and its effects on organizational, institutional and socio-political life.
Personally, I’m interested in the way multiple axes of difference (culture, race, ethnicity, language, gender, nationality, class…) are articulated by the novelist. It is likely that I will do some closer work on South African writers and how they portray the diversity of their own identities and within their native land.
My professor, Melissa Steyn held a small gathering at her house this past Friday for all the students in the Diversity Studies program. I previously attended the Sociology orientation which is where I met Kim Wales, who was the student from UCT who attended NYU last semester on the exchange program. A bubbly and beautiful girl with long curly hair, she was so delighted to be able to talk with someone from NYU. She got even more excited when we realized that we knew some of the same students. She was kind enough to pick me up so that we could attend the party together. We also picked up another student, who I am pretty sure is of Xhosa background (the Xhosa language famously contains a variety of consonantal 'click' sounds) and therefore I could only pronounce his last name, which is Zuma. Zuma is a Nelson Mandela Scholar, which basically means that he has been hand selected as a future leader in
We arrived at Melissa’s house and were welcomed into her maze-like home. Filled with a myriad of tiny rooms and tinier hallways between each, the walls were covered with family photographs, political posters, inspirational quotes, and artifacts of
I left with a new energy that I have never felt at NYU--a hope for what I might learn here and a fresh anxiousness to begin class so that I can hear this diverse group of voices converge on social issues. What I am starting to see/learn is that understanding and being open to diversity can be as integral to our survival (“our” being the people of the world) as clean water, fresh air, food in our mouths.
The Roommates
Shoo-Shoo: Have you ever heard a German man quote Dave Chappelle? It’s f#@king hilarious. Florian (a.k.a. Shoo-Shoo, which is a nickname that stuck after I massacred his last name—something that might be phonetically spelt: Shoe-hoe, with a thick glob of phlegm coming into your mouth on the “hoe” part) is a tall, blonde, Arian type of guy with a deep German voice. He plays field hockey. He dances like Tom Jones when he is drunk at clubs. If you told me a few weeks ago that this guy would basically be my best friend here, I would have laughed… but we share a love of cereal and all things Dave Chappelle.
Wendy: Wendy is a tiny Mexican girl who speaks English with the most beautiful accent. She studies at McGill in
Kai: Kai is a slightly smelly German surfer who is very interesting to talk to but that can only be done at a distance. He wakes up at
Micheala: Micheala is my very tall and also blonde roommate. Her and Shoo-Shoo could be siblings, or makers of the master race. She very rarely snores and can sleep through pretty much anything. She never wears a bra but always wears a string bikini top. She likes to smoke on our steps—the back steps, the front steps, the steps from our bedroom door. Give her a few steps and she will smoke there.
I really love them all. We play Monopoly together. We go to the beach together. We commute to school together. We cook together. We put sun-block on each other. We watch horrendous South African soap operas together. We ask each other about our days. We have made a really nice home here together.
The long walk home…
I mentioned in my jogging post that I took the UCT shuttle home for the first time and that this was a frightening experience. Basically this walk has become a microcosm of my experience trying to “figure out”
It began back at UCT where I had asked multiple people (students and university administrators) how exactly to get home but no one could definitively answer the question. Eventually one of the orientation leaders broke out a map and knew roughly where the UCT Claremont shuttle stopped near my home. I then started to trace the path of how I could walk home but he stopped me and asked when exactly I would be going home. I told him that, of course I would walk home in the afternoon but this didn’t seem to satisfy him. The unspoken conversation that was happening was “When do you plan on making this trip? In the relative safety of daylight?”. He then urged me to take a taxi home. The walk looked short on the map but knew it could be excruciatingly long if the path was dangerous. But when I arrived there didn’t seem to be any taxis around.
So I went into a nearby store and asked the white clerk the best place to catch a taxi. I was advised that there were no taxis around this area and the only way was to walk—and he asked if someone could pick me up instead (please realize that I wasn’t any further than a 10 minute walk home). He told me that it was a very dangerous route and to hold onto my purse tightly. He only served to frighten me even more—the context proving to be more scary than the content.
Basically, it was only later that I figured out I was about to walk the wrong way home—“wrong way” meaning through a densely packed back street close to a train station, which also served as an impromptu market and meeting place. Although this sounds innocuous enough, this is exactly the type of situation that white South Africans avoid. In fact white South Africans only rarely take public transportation. Imagine living in
As I left the store, there were two young women walking past who looked like they were going in the direction that I needed to go. So I trailed next to them as though we were walking together. They must have thought I was insane or that I had some personal space issues but it didn’t matter. I felt the real and imagined eyes of the crowds of people all over me. The two women were going on the train, so once I had passed the train and was on the suburban road behind the train station, I kept relatively close to a few pedestrians walking as well. These were older black women who seem to be the domestic workers who do general house work in the rich suburban areas (how do I know this? Because we have one for our own house—set up by the owners of the house. She comes once every two weeks and does some general cleaning. This seems to be the norm, not the exception).
In any event, I arrived home safe but shaken. I was depressed by the fact that this would be my life for the next 6 months. I felt like a brat for even having that thought seeing as some people live their whole lives in real or imagined danger.
These fears were half-settled/half-encouraged when a security guard buzzed our door one evening. Apparently UCT has arranged for a security guard to cover the student houses that are a bit off campus—this includes us. He said that he would buzz our door each evening so that we knew he was in the area but that he would stop buzzing around
A few days later I was shown a different route to the UCT shuttle by one of my roommates, which avoided the train station. There weren’t as many pedestrians—which is a liability in one sense and a blessing in another. So I settled on this as an alternative, which I could travel with a roommate, in the day-light.
Then one of my roommates walked it alone. She said she was a bit worried at first but it seemed fine. So that was encouraging. Plus, I always have my mace.
I started to walk this route alone on a day-to-day basis. I was neither scared nor fully-comfortable but I had learned something from my jog. I wanted to disarm the situation/the fear with kindness. I was determined that with each person that I walked by I would say some sort of greeting. “Good morning”, “Hello”, “Good afternoon”—it didn’t matter. All that mattered to me was that I showed some sign of respect, some opportunity for the other person to show me the same. Although the gesture may seem so simple and small, I believe these types of actions have the power to humanize us in ways that are unconscious. I swear that every time I have done this I have witnessed first a look of surprise, then a look of confusion, then a sign of respect (the tilt of a head in acknowledgement or a wave of the hand) or an even more positive greeting (“Good day to you!”). It has become both my way of settling my anxiety, as well as undermining the mutual prejudice and fear that is the legacy of apartheid.
Then just the other day I was walking this same route, when I saw two ADT security guards on bikes. It seems they cover the area on their bicycles (of course, this is a service that is paid for by someone in the neighborhood—I have yet to figure out how this works exactly). Again, I said hello to these two men. Again the same repertoire of surprise, confusion and finally, a positive reception flashed across their faces. One of them commented on how hot it was outside. I agreed and said I hoped that they wouldn’t get too hot in their uniforms and to be careful in the heat. He was obviously very surprised that I was making small-talk with him. He asked where I was from and we continued this conversation—him on his bike, me walking on the sidewalk. Our conversation sort of died out when I was just about a block from the stairs which lead up to the main road but the security guard insisted on escort me to the stairs. He said that sometimes people hang out around the stairs and he wanted to be sure I arrived safely. Again, it was something that caused me to reconsider my perception of safety (and also that it is not only white South Africans who spread this fear) but more than that, I was genuinely happy that by merely saying hello to this person, I made a certain impression on him. That he was concerned for me—a complete stranger—and he wanted to ensure my safety. Call me a hippy, but my preferred method of self-defense is making friends. Plus, I might just meet a lot of people on this trip. I might even meet myself.
Think Locally, Pimp Globally
In the interest of “keeping it real” (yes, I just used “keeping it real), I have to admit that one of my ulterior motives in traveling to Cape Town was to bag myself a South African hottie. Like Eddie Murphy in “Coming to
In any event, I don’t have a good feeling about this trip. Besides the fact that that South African accent, which once sounded so deliciously exotic, now can sound pretty snobby—there just don’t seem to be that many men of my age around.
Part of the issue is that I spend a great deal of my time at UCT and post-graduate work seems to be relatively underdeveloped there and in
Some point their finger at “white flight”, which basically means that white men around my age usually go to other countries for an extended amount of time or permanently to get advanced business opportunities which are not as readily available in
Lastly, there are too many damn Americans and Germans here. What the f#$k is that about?! I’m supposed to be the only American! Me! Only me! Like meeting a born-and-bred New Yorker in
So, for now… prospects are dim. And I’m learning German.
Places I’ve been recently that are probably on a postcard:
Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden: Drive 5 minutes from my house and pay a mere 20 Rand (that’s roughly 3 US dollars), and you can enter into a magical garden, which is the only botanical garden in the world named a World Heritage site.
The first time I visited, Kai, Wendy and I got lost along the maze of miniature walkways, tree-covered paths and landscaped gardens. There is a sculpture garden, where an ivory elephant sits tranquilly, an alligator slivers across the lawn, a 6 foot high mask glares from the shade of a tree, an intertwined couple hold their baby as the sun bounces off the smooth figures, cutting them a strong silhouette against the lush green background. Another favorite was the fragrance garden, where plants are elevated so you can easily bend to take in the intoxicating/fresh/delicious scents.
The second time I visited was to see a concert—each Sunday, Kirstenbosch holds concerts in their main lawn area. Similar to the
Hiking Lion’s Head
One of my goals for my semester at UCT was to get as involved as I could in “student life”. So far, this “student life” stuff is overrated. I’ve found out that students, in general, are pretty dorky.
Anywho, as part of my plan to re-embrace student-hood, I’ve not only joined UCT’s running club but also their Mountaineering and Hiking club.
The first outing was a sunset hike up Lion’s Head, which is one of the various mountains that dominate
So, the 60 or so students begin the hike, trotting eagerly to their destination. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they hike. I’m definitely one of the “stop and smell the roses” hikers, in that I actually like to appreciate the scenery while I’m hiking instead of just getting to the destination. So while everyone raced to the finish line, I took my time, stopped to take photographs and capture the moments that were special to me. As you know, I’ve never been one to just follow the group.
And of course, what lay ahead was a stunning hike that was all my own. I watched the sun play across the mountain range, casting shadows on the city bowl as it set over the ocean. As I wound my way around the mountain, I turned a corner and caught a paraglider just about to step off the steep ridge and catch the wind. There were 3 paragliders playing in the sky above me for the rest of the hike. The hike itself was roughly over an hour with some scrabbling mixed in. The top of the ridge always has fog rolling over it, so once I reached a certain point, I decided to stay put so that I could capture the sun set without risking a bunch of photos that were mainly of mist. Slightly sweaty and satisfied, I snapped away at the paragliders dancing on the horizon in near solitude (minus my friend Melanie and some other random hikers who were on their way to the summit). The mist which rolled down from above me softened the glare of the sun which descended lazily over the water. It was enchanting and absolutely peaceful. Once the sun had finished it's descent, we headed back down around the mountain while the sky changed from blue to black and the city lit up into a semi-circle of orange stars.
District 6 Museum
In the 1950s, District 6 was a vibrant mixed race neighborhood—despite being deliberately neglected by the government and lacking some very basic amenities. There were spice shops, tailors, butchers, fishmongers, mosques, churches, schools. “It’s streets were veritable rivers of life”, one former resident wrote. In the struggle of living, there formed a community that had warmth, respectability , “rascality”, despair and creativity.
In 1966, District 6 was declared a whites-only area after a Swiss city planner was hired by the government to re-organize the city. Cape Town’s streets were deemed an “accidental layout” and not surprisingly, the new layout divided and isolated communities according to race/color. This division served to fragment identities as well as divide the various communities which had found solidarity/strength in their shared experience of oppression—a frightening possibility for any government keen on maintaining its dominance. Over 60,000 people were given notices to leave to a new area—the “
The effort to further control and isolate the colored and black population was simultaneously achieved by new Pass Laws, which came in a few variations but basically said that any colored or black person had to have a passport-like book which listed detailed biographical information (birth date, race, employer, areas approved to travel within, etc). These passes had to be on your person at all times and were checked at various points in order to control your ability to travel, whether it be for work, to see friends and family, for buying products—in short to live. Among a variety of non-violent demonstrations against pass laws and the forced removals, pass burning sent a loud statement but garnered little results.
By 1984, destruction of District 6 was completed. The whole area had been bulldozed, stripped and cleared; it's former residents scattered.
Any artifacts of District 6 that are left now remain at the District 6 Museum where the personal accounts and pictures will overwhelm your senses and touch your humanity. The museum is as much for visitors to
It is true that District 6 can not be found in any map... but the spirit of true places never can be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
