Friday, April 30, 2004
“Some three thousand poems disguised as people on an almost-too-perfect-day” – Ani DiFranco
I was listening to this song “Self Evident” last night, trying to write a paper on attitudes toward skin color in antiquity, only the third paper I’ve written all semester. Ani was spilling and spilling about the Trade Center and America in and out of the world, and then today I clicked my way to the New York Times online only to find that Bush and Cheney sealed off their questioning session by the 9/11 commission from the media and the public, sealed it tight as a canister of anthrax. In another one of my lectures, we’re talking all about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the months of PUBLIC hearings meant to jumpstart a democratic discourse, to doctor some of the gaping wounds of the past. And in my class on Language Policy, my professor told me how U.C.T. had a banned reading room during Apartheid. If you wanted access to Marxist materials, you had to sign your name and exactly what works you were leafing through. And under America’s Patriot Act, if I’m not mistaken, the government has access to library records, without explicitly saying what they don’t want people reading in the name of justice.
Last weekend I went to Lesotho. It was an adventure in various methods of public transportation. We spent the nights going there and home on a Greyhound, drinking tea and staring at movie screens bouncing back and forth with the bus. We saw the sunrise in Blomfontein on the way there, and played pool at the man-made waterfront of the land-locked city, S. Africa’s judicial capitol, on the way home. We waited for a mini bus taxi to fill up with people, three hours waiting, on the way there, to get to the border, and then the five of us made the perfect sum to send the mini bus taxi back to Blomfontein, on the way home.
We were enveloped in bustle in Maseru, Lesotho’s capitol, both ways, women with bowls of bread on their head, blackened corn rotating on metal pans, neon colored juices in dented plastic bottles, sacs of muffins cooling and clumped. Motion like embroidery everywhere, colors moving in and out in space, knotted.
We took another bus through winding roads up to Malealea, a village polka dotted into hills. All along the way, people got off the bus with crates of eggs, body-bag sized containers of snacks to stock stores. We got off at the Malealea Lodge, the white-owned resort center evolved from a store at the corner of the village. Our room had a thatched roof and a couple candles to use when the power shut off, cause it did, every night at ten. And we could look up from outside and feel like we were inside of a giant salt-shaker, speckles of light coming through the dome above. Guides from the village led us on hikes, one to a waterfall, another to a gorge and a woman holding a baby invited us in to her mud hut, not all five at once. The Lodge creates jobs, but it doesn’t. That’s what Zachary said. There are A guides and B guides and they alternate weeks and sometimes they spend the money for alcohol and dajja and fights break out. And half a dozen kids who come up to your waist come up to you and escort you to the Village craft shop for coins. A boy told me his English name was Alex. I asked for a Sesotho name. I got Liduma. I think it means “sound”, like something you hear, or maybe as a prefix for asleep.
“What’s that music?” we ask as we walk. “It’s the cows”. Lesotho was my first exposure to rural South Africa. “Lesotho is a very poor country,” Joseph told us as we climbed into a valley. He’s fifteen and wants to be a lawyer. The poverty there is different from Kayelitsha, where less than a kilometer away people swing golf clubs that cost more than school fees parents can’t afford. Lesotho is smaller than New Jersey, totally surrounded by South Africa, and has more people than Namibia, but not so many more. The women carry bundles of wood on their heads in Malealea, up dirt paths, past sheep and goats and cows whose bells play symphonies.
At the lodge we meet a group of retreating lawyers and real estate agents from Jo’burg, who insist we eat their leftover stir-fry and an American/Canadian guy doing HIV/AIDS work all over Africa who buys us beer. A band and a choir from the village perform in the evenings. There is a metal box for tips. Coins clink like cow-bells. “We came to Africa to see Lesotho,” my friend joked. “We came to Lesotho to see Africa.”
I was listening to this song “Self Evident” last night, trying to write a paper on attitudes toward skin color in antiquity, only the third paper I’ve written all semester. Ani was spilling and spilling about the Trade Center and America in and out of the world, and then today I clicked my way to the New York Times online only to find that Bush and Cheney sealed off their questioning session by the 9/11 commission from the media and the public, sealed it tight as a canister of anthrax. In another one of my lectures, we’re talking all about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the months of PUBLIC hearings meant to jumpstart a democratic discourse, to doctor some of the gaping wounds of the past. And in my class on Language Policy, my professor told me how U.C.T. had a banned reading room during Apartheid. If you wanted access to Marxist materials, you had to sign your name and exactly what works you were leafing through. And under America’s Patriot Act, if I’m not mistaken, the government has access to library records, without explicitly saying what they don’t want people reading in the name of justice.
Last weekend I went to Lesotho. It was an adventure in various methods of public transportation. We spent the nights going there and home on a Greyhound, drinking tea and staring at movie screens bouncing back and forth with the bus. We saw the sunrise in Blomfontein on the way there, and played pool at the man-made waterfront of the land-locked city, S. Africa’s judicial capitol, on the way home. We waited for a mini bus taxi to fill up with people, three hours waiting, on the way there, to get to the border, and then the five of us made the perfect sum to send the mini bus taxi back to Blomfontein, on the way home.
We were enveloped in bustle in Maseru, Lesotho’s capitol, both ways, women with bowls of bread on their head, blackened corn rotating on metal pans, neon colored juices in dented plastic bottles, sacs of muffins cooling and clumped. Motion like embroidery everywhere, colors moving in and out in space, knotted.
We took another bus through winding roads up to Malealea, a village polka dotted into hills. All along the way, people got off the bus with crates of eggs, body-bag sized containers of snacks to stock stores. We got off at the Malealea Lodge, the white-owned resort center evolved from a store at the corner of the village. Our room had a thatched roof and a couple candles to use when the power shut off, cause it did, every night at ten. And we could look up from outside and feel like we were inside of a giant salt-shaker, speckles of light coming through the dome above. Guides from the village led us on hikes, one to a waterfall, another to a gorge and a woman holding a baby invited us in to her mud hut, not all five at once. The Lodge creates jobs, but it doesn’t. That’s what Zachary said. There are A guides and B guides and they alternate weeks and sometimes they spend the money for alcohol and dajja and fights break out. And half a dozen kids who come up to your waist come up to you and escort you to the Village craft shop for coins. A boy told me his English name was Alex. I asked for a Sesotho name. I got Liduma. I think it means “sound”, like something you hear, or maybe as a prefix for asleep.
“What’s that music?” we ask as we walk. “It’s the cows”. Lesotho was my first exposure to rural South Africa. “Lesotho is a very poor country,” Joseph told us as we climbed into a valley. He’s fifteen and wants to be a lawyer. The poverty there is different from Kayelitsha, where less than a kilometer away people swing golf clubs that cost more than school fees parents can’t afford. Lesotho is smaller than New Jersey, totally surrounded by South Africa, and has more people than Namibia, but not so many more. The women carry bundles of wood on their heads in Malealea, up dirt paths, past sheep and goats and cows whose bells play symphonies.
At the lodge we meet a group of retreating lawyers and real estate agents from Jo’burg, who insist we eat their leftover stir-fry and an American/Canadian guy doing HIV/AIDS work all over Africa who buys us beer. A band and a choir from the village perform in the evenings. There is a metal box for tips. Coins clink like cow-bells. “We came to Africa to see Lesotho,” my friend joked. “We came to Lesotho to see Africa.”
Thursday, April 22, 2004
I apologize for being out of the loop. It’s been a few weeks of readjusting to life in Cape Town, catching up with the books and wearing hoods under drizzly skies. There was last Saturday’s rafting trip down the Breede River and last Wednesday’s elections, marking ten years of democracy. The ANC (African National Congress) won 69% of the vote and Thabo Mbeki will serve another term as president. To prevent fraud, voters’ thumbnails were stained with deep purple ink. As the voter turnout was above 70%, there were lots of queues in front of town halls and lots of spotted thumbs.
On to Holiday in Namibia . . .expanse of desert, massive sand dunes in shades of iridescent terra cotta, soft as skin, sun exits and entrances vivid as ripe papaya. With a population of about 1.8 million, Namibia has two people per square kilometer. In 1989, it was the last African country to gain independence, having been occupied by Germany and Apartheid South Africa.
Kelly, Rachel, Krista, Sarah, Jared, Steve, Mitchell and I landed in Windhoek, picked up the keys to a Toyota and a Nissan, stocked up on rice and beans and flavored potato chips and headed north to Etosha National Park. As we pulled up to the gate, we saw a piece of rainbow arching into a yawning sky. A few kilometers down, we hit the breaks and the off-button on the stereo so a dozen zebras could cross the gravel road. We saw herds and herds of antelope and springbok heading somewhere, giraffes trotting across fields, water buffalo heavy on their hooves (I think buffalo have hooves). We spent two nights in the Etosha campsites of Namutoni and Okaukuejo, building fires, pitching tents and playing rummy. We braved a thunderstorm and our subsequently soaked sleeping bags. We waited under a thatched roof with a view of a waterhole, keeping our eyes peeled for elephants and lions until our eyelids got too heavy. We heard a lion or two and plenty of safari goers in khaki pajamas snoring through tent walls.
Next stop was the coastal city of Swakopmund. After a day of scenic cruising past boulders and vast fields, we arrived at the “Alternative Space,” a bed and breakfast deemed an “experience”, decked in erotic artwork and scrap metal. Sybil and Frenus, German émigrés and avid art collectors, live on the premises with their two boys. They designed the outdoor showers amidst vines and hibiscus flowers, and the igloo-shaped rooms overlooking the dunes. They gave us the number for Raymond, a sandboarding instructor who once starred in a Seal music video. He took us out to the dunes for a day of boarding/sledding on flannel-soft sand. The Space also boasted a fully equipped kitchen for guests, which we filled with ingredients for haroset, and soup greens as we prepped for a Passover Seder. Four of us were regular seder-goers and the other four were first timers. A yam on the seder plate was also a new addition, playing the role of the shank-bone/beet as they were out of stock at the Swakop Pick & Pay. We jabbered into the night about the Israeli Palestinian conflict and Iraq and how thankful we were to be in Namibia and South Africa and college and with each other. There was singing and camera flashes and a few tears.
More playing on massive dunes in Sossusvlei and Sesriem. We bumped into some other U.C.T. kids at our campsite and offered them hospitality in our tents as they had popped three tires that day and had to their names a mini tent that slept one, a can of green beans and a guitar. We ascended the slip-slope of Dune 45 for sunrise. Dune 45, not unlike Studio 54, okay not at all like Studio 54 is. . . a HUGE dune. “It’s gonna be hard to convince people that sand dunes can be so cool,” Jared remarked.
Final tourist destination was Ai-Ais hot springs, adjacent to Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world, after the Grand Canyon. It was still non-hiking season due to flooding, but the view into the winding arteries of the canyon at none other than sunset was spectacular. We camped at Ai-Ais for three nights, at the foot of charcoal mountains teeming with baboons and lined by a bronzed river. We were adopted by an Afrikaaner family on their annual vacation. They offered us plenty of wine and beer and toasties and commentary on American politics and hip hop.
Camping culture is intense. People bring collapsible living rooms and canvas armoires of silverware and four-bedroom tents. Some people pitch their tents on the roofs of S.U.V.S. and pull tables and chairs out of trailers. Many people snore. Most of the campsites we visited had pools and fire-pits, general stores and petrol stations, and some even had restaurants. Most of the vacationers were white and the employees, black. Apartheid’s legacy sits sturdy.
I was surprised by the smoothness of our trip. Well, the roads were bumpy, and we nearly lost a bumper on one of our cars. But to that I say, thank heavens for duct tape! I think I laughed for ten days straight. Our random group of eight had an incredible vibe. We spent our days playing musical car seats and jumping out of the car on empty straits of highway to frolic in the sand and throw around Gilbert, our beloved rugby ball. It was a revitalizing trip, shampooless as it was, and a transformative Passover spent in the desert.
On to Holiday in Namibia . . .expanse of desert, massive sand dunes in shades of iridescent terra cotta, soft as skin, sun exits and entrances vivid as ripe papaya. With a population of about 1.8 million, Namibia has two people per square kilometer. In 1989, it was the last African country to gain independence, having been occupied by Germany and Apartheid South Africa.
Kelly, Rachel, Krista, Sarah, Jared, Steve, Mitchell and I landed in Windhoek, picked up the keys to a Toyota and a Nissan, stocked up on rice and beans and flavored potato chips and headed north to Etosha National Park. As we pulled up to the gate, we saw a piece of rainbow arching into a yawning sky. A few kilometers down, we hit the breaks and the off-button on the stereo so a dozen zebras could cross the gravel road. We saw herds and herds of antelope and springbok heading somewhere, giraffes trotting across fields, water buffalo heavy on their hooves (I think buffalo have hooves). We spent two nights in the Etosha campsites of Namutoni and Okaukuejo, building fires, pitching tents and playing rummy. We braved a thunderstorm and our subsequently soaked sleeping bags. We waited under a thatched roof with a view of a waterhole, keeping our eyes peeled for elephants and lions until our eyelids got too heavy. We heard a lion or two and plenty of safari goers in khaki pajamas snoring through tent walls.
Next stop was the coastal city of Swakopmund. After a day of scenic cruising past boulders and vast fields, we arrived at the “Alternative Space,” a bed and breakfast deemed an “experience”, decked in erotic artwork and scrap metal. Sybil and Frenus, German émigrés and avid art collectors, live on the premises with their two boys. They designed the outdoor showers amidst vines and hibiscus flowers, and the igloo-shaped rooms overlooking the dunes. They gave us the number for Raymond, a sandboarding instructor who once starred in a Seal music video. He took us out to the dunes for a day of boarding/sledding on flannel-soft sand. The Space also boasted a fully equipped kitchen for guests, which we filled with ingredients for haroset, and soup greens as we prepped for a Passover Seder. Four of us were regular seder-goers and the other four were first timers. A yam on the seder plate was also a new addition, playing the role of the shank-bone/beet as they were out of stock at the Swakop Pick & Pay. We jabbered into the night about the Israeli Palestinian conflict and Iraq and how thankful we were to be in Namibia and South Africa and college and with each other. There was singing and camera flashes and a few tears.
More playing on massive dunes in Sossusvlei and Sesriem. We bumped into some other U.C.T. kids at our campsite and offered them hospitality in our tents as they had popped three tires that day and had to their names a mini tent that slept one, a can of green beans and a guitar. We ascended the slip-slope of Dune 45 for sunrise. Dune 45, not unlike Studio 54, okay not at all like Studio 54 is. . . a HUGE dune. “It’s gonna be hard to convince people that sand dunes can be so cool,” Jared remarked.
Final tourist destination was Ai-Ais hot springs, adjacent to Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world, after the Grand Canyon. It was still non-hiking season due to flooding, but the view into the winding arteries of the canyon at none other than sunset was spectacular. We camped at Ai-Ais for three nights, at the foot of charcoal mountains teeming with baboons and lined by a bronzed river. We were adopted by an Afrikaaner family on their annual vacation. They offered us plenty of wine and beer and toasties and commentary on American politics and hip hop.
Camping culture is intense. People bring collapsible living rooms and canvas armoires of silverware and four-bedroom tents. Some people pitch their tents on the roofs of S.U.V.S. and pull tables and chairs out of trailers. Many people snore. Most of the campsites we visited had pools and fire-pits, general stores and petrol stations, and some even had restaurants. Most of the vacationers were white and the employees, black. Apartheid’s legacy sits sturdy.
I was surprised by the smoothness of our trip. Well, the roads were bumpy, and we nearly lost a bumper on one of our cars. But to that I say, thank heavens for duct tape! I think I laughed for ten days straight. Our random group of eight had an incredible vibe. We spent our days playing musical car seats and jumping out of the car on empty straits of highway to frolic in the sand and throw around Gilbert, our beloved rugby ball. It was a revitalizing trip, shampooless as it was, and a transformative Passover spent in the desert.
