Over the past few weeks, the population of Grahamstown has gradually left. First it was Emily (moved to Cape Town), then Kim (back to Canada), then most everyone I know that is/was associated with Rhodes University – some have moved on, some will come back when school reopens in February. Yoga lessons have stopped. I haven’t been running into people I know at Pick ‘n’ Pay. The Old Gaol bar is empty most nights. I’m anticipating a lonely January.
But for the moment, I’m leaving Grahamstown too. Tomorrow I fly off to Dar es Salaam to spend the holidays in Tanzania with two other CBA interns, Cristiano and Prasanna. We’ll spend a few days in Zanzibar, maybe visit a game park, and play the rest by ear. I’m looking forward to some real hot weather (which there hasn’t been much of in Grahamstown) and Christmas on the beach. It will be a different holiday and I will miss spending it with friends and family back home, but I am grateful to be travelling and meeting up with some fellow Canadians.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! See you in January.
Of all the places in South Africa, before coming here, I was most intimidated by Johannesburg. I had heard awful stories about rape (people sleep in anti-rape cages!), muggings (in broad daylight!), carjackings (people don’t stop at red lights!), and other violent crimes. I even routed my flights through Cape Town to avoid the Joburg airport.
But you can’t live in South Africa long without wanting to meet Jozi. The first time I passed through (on my way to Groot Marico), the Joburg native I met quickly dashed the myth of the anti-rape cage. I started to hear about Jozi as “the most cosmopolitan city in Africa” and “the great big beating heart of South Africa” (Lonely Planet), “the world’s largest man-made forest” and "an absolutely exquisite city” (Joburg native), and “a lively place where there’s always something to do” (CBA intern in Joburg).
I headed to Joburg for a long weekend including Reconciliation Day (December 16). What a shock to be in the big city again! City lights, traffic, shopping malls, smog, starless nights… But also things to do, food to eat, places to spend money, sights to see.
First stop for law nerds is Constitution Hill, which contains South Africa’s new Constitutional Court and is built on the site of an old prison that housed Mandela and Ghandi. Since Lonely Planet touts it as “one of the city’s – if not the country’s – chief tourist attractions”, I was surprised to find only two other tourists (who, interestingly enough, had come down from Zimbabwe for “provisions”). We were free to wander around the old Number Four prison and the Old Fort. The Constitutional Court, which is the highest court for constitutional matters in South Africa, is beautiful: built around the stairwells of the old Awaiting Trial Block, large windows, colourful artwork with metaphorical meaning.
I also visited the township of Soweto. A “township” is essentially a poor non-white (obviously) suburb – but Soweto is so much more, with a population of over 2 million and unparalleled historical importance (centre of the resistance, site of the Soweto Uprising and the adoption of the Freedom Charter, Mandela’s and Tutu’s homes). Nowadays both rich and poor live in Soweto. And the drinks aren’t always cheap – R15 for Savannah at Sakumzis!
A highlight was meeting George Bizos at the LRC Joburg office and Constitutional Litigation Unit. The CBA Joburg interns showed me around and we had lunch with Mr. Bizos and a Wits law student working personally with Mr. Bizos for a month. It was an honour to meet this extraordinary man and watch him work.
There is more to see in Jozi, but it was plenty for my first visit. And after a weekend in the city, I was again astounded by the stars in the big Eastern Cape sky as I rode the shuttle back to Grahamstown.
Yes, it’s a country! Lesotho is a small land-locked country in the middle of South Africa. Kim and I travelled there for a week at the end of November for her “farewell tour” to Africa…
Lesotho is the home of the Basotho people. Led by the King Moshoeshoe the Great, they sought safety in the Drakensburg and Maluti mountain ranges. They fought off Boer incursions, allying themselves with the British. Basotholand came under the direct control of the British imperial government in 1884. One unexpected benefit of this was that when South Africa was formed in 1910, Basotholand was a British protectorate and was not included in South Africa, so it never became a homeland under apartheid.
Kim and I rented a car in Grahamstown and drove up through Queenstown, Aliwal North, Zastron and Wepener to enter Van Rooyens Gate at Mafeteng. Lesotho’s freedom from an apartheid past was immediately apparent. The people are more friendly, open, and relaxed – and they still stare and wave at non-Blacks. After 3 months of the complexities of race in South Africa, the simplicity of the Basotho approach was refreshing.
We spent 5 nights under the auspices of Malealea Lodge. These included a 3-day pony trek with 2 nights in the Basotho huts in the villages of Ribaneng and Sekoting. Our Basotho ponies were long-suffering and sure-footed on the steep rocky trails. I could almost fall asleep to the rhythm of their hoofbeats on the remote mountain passes.
At Malealea, we befriended an Italian duo (imagine their surprise when I spoke Italian to them). They told us about “the world’s longest commercially operated single-drop abseil” at Semonkong Lodge. They headed there on their ponies and we asked them to book us lodging. For us, it was a rough 150km drive that took 5 hours, as the final 70km was a gravel road through the mountains. The last 100 metres was the worst – I inched our tiny VW Chico down a rocky pass as people and donkeys plodded by, easily passing us.
Finally, we reached Semonkong (“Place of Smoke”), a misty magical place amidst the mountains where we abseiled 204m down the cliff face of Maletsunyane Falls. A breathtaking, petrifying, 20-minute long total adrenaline rush!
Kombi, kombi, bakkie, eskepeni… then barefoot through the grass and cow dung across the hills. That’s how I made it to paradise on earth at Bulungula.
It was a long journey, sometimes daunting and often uncomfortable, but I finally felt like I touched the heart of South Africa. One of my favourite ways to travel in West Africa was public transport – bobbing to music, jolting down bad roads, chatting with strangers, crammed in like sweaty sardines – and it has been one of the things I've missed most in South Africa. I don’t need transport in Grahamstown, and my colleagues have discouraged me taking informal public transport. So when our workshop in Qunu ended early on Friday afternoon, I evaluated my options for getting to Bulungula Lodge. Either I could wait for 3 hours for the lodge’s shuttle at the petrol station in Mthatha, or I could start the journey on my own. I studied my printouts from the website. They provided detailed instructions for public transport, and also said: "Not only are minibuses and non-tourist buses much cheaper and quicker but they are also often the best way to meet interesting people and to learn about local culture. We recommend a crowded bakkie taxi filled with people, chickens, groceries and laughs over luxury transport any day. Coming by local transport is definitely the only way to appreciate the unique location of the lodge. In fact, anyone who arrives at the lodge by local transport from Mthatha gets the first night free." Surely they wouldn’t recommend it if it weren’t safe! I decided it was now or never for public transport.
A worried Rufus dropped me at the Coffee Bay turn off the N2 highway, where I caught a kombi taxi to Mqanduli, then changed cars for Elliotdale/Xhora. There I caught a bakkie taxi to Nkanya, making sure (in accordance with instructions) to ask the driver to drop me at the "eskepeni" (ferry). For my first time in South Africa, nobody spoke English and there were no white or coloured people in sight. People stared. I quickly latched onto anyone that I discovered spoke any English, hoping they would help me on my way.
It was crowded in the back of the bakkie jammed in with 9 Xhosa women and a whole lotta cargo. The canopy made awful ripping sounds and I could swear that it (and the cargo on top) was going to crash down on our heads at any moment. The women chatted loudly and drank sugary drinks and threw the packets out the window. Everyone stared but nobody spoke to me. I kind of wondered how the hell I would get there. After a while, I took out my map to try to decipher where we were. One of the girls said: "Where are you going? I don't know you speak English; I think you only speak Chi-na." I told her I needed to take the eskepeni to Bulungula, and she told me another women would also take the ferry.
After 2 hours, the bakkie started emptying and the driver offered me the front seat. I could see we were nearing the Xhora river. Suddenly, I saw a sign that said "Nkanya" and I noticed everyone disembarking; I was the only one left. I panicked and quickly got out of the car. The other woman taking the ferry was standing by the roadside. A crowd of local men and boys had gathered and were staring at me. I asked the driver, "Where are you taking me?!" He said "They get off here, I take you to the other side." I didn't believe him (how could I be the ONLY passenger left?!) and decided to follow this woman. I kept repeating to her "eskepeni, eskepeni."
Two Rasta men grabbed her packages and started walking. One of them spoke a little English and I tried to establish that we were headed for the eskepeni to Bulungula, but I still wasn’t sure. My biggest consolation was that we were headed downwards in the general direction I had seen the river. We walked for about 30 minutes through the mud and grass, then to my relief we reached the riverbank. A few women and children were there and I sat down to wait. A small canoe arrived, rowed by a young boy. The women motioned to me to take off my shoes and roll up my pants, and we waded out and boarded the ferry. I obsessively repeated to them "Bulungula, Bulungula." On the other side, I understood through various motions that I was to follow a certain small boy. Still barefoot, we walked through the rolling hills for about 30 minutes, then he pointed to a group of rondavels that looked like the picture on the Bulungula website. I gave him 15 rand and a juice box. I could see white people! I felt safe.
The irony is that I was safe all along. Arriving at the lodge, I met the owner Dave Martin and told him about my journey. He told me that the bakkie drivers take guests a little bit further as a favour to the lodge – that’s why I had to walk so long to the ferry. How sorry I felt that I had insulted that driver, but without knowing, there was nothing else I could have done in those circumstances.
I spent a heavenly weekend at Bulungula. Bulungula is an ethical backpackers lodge and community development organization in Nqileni village on the Wild Coast. It is 40% community owned, eco-friendly (with solar energy, compost toilets, and paraffin-powered "rocket" showers), and set in what may be the most beautiful place in South Africa. There are no fences and I slept in a rondavel with no lock on the door. The people from the village run tours and services for which they keep 100% of profits. I spent the morning with a village woman (she painted my face, we made a mud and dung brick, collected water and firewood, picked greens and ground maize then used them to make lunch), had a nap on the beach (where I was completely alone), went horseriding with a young boy along the coast and through the village, then finished the day with a private massage in my rondavel. True to their word, Bulungula gave me my first night free for making it on public transport.
However, Nqileni is also one of the poorest, most remote villages in South Africa. There are no roads, running water, clinic, schools or electricity. This was really brought home on Sunday morning when I spoke with Dave and learned that he had driven two people to the hospital during the night. Bulungula has the only vehicle (a 4x4) in the area. A third woman, in labour, had come at dawn, but he was too exhausted and asked her to wait until 8am. She hadn’t waited – and had set off on the long journey that I had come on. Water, education, and health care are enshrined rights under South Africa's Bill of Rights. Maybe there's a legal case (and another trip here) to be made…
I know – it’s been a long time. My only excuse is that I’ve been making the most of my time here and the past month has been full of interesting work and travels. Thanks to everyone who has continued checking the blog; I hope you enjoy these long overdue updates.
Last month, Rufus and I headed back on that same road to the Transkei that we took during my first week at the LRC. This time, however, our stop was in Qunu. Note that Qunu is pronounced with a violent click on the “Q” that (according to my Xhosa book) is produced by sucking the front of the tongue to the front of the palate and pulling it away rapidly to produce a loud popping sound (give it a try – I can’t do it!).
Qunu is the village where Nelson Mandela spent the “happiest days” of his childhood and traces his earliest memories. He describes it in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom:
The village of Qunu was situated in a narrow, grassy valley crisscrossed by clear streams, and overlooked by green hills. It consisted of no more than a few hundred people who lived in huts, known as rondavels, which were beehive-shaped structures of mud walls, with a wooden pole in the center holding up a peaked, grass roof. The floor was made of crushed ant-heap, the hard dome of excavated earth above an ant colony, and was kept smooth by smearing it regularly with fresh cow dung. The smoke from the hearth escaped through the roof, and the only opening was a low doorway one had to stoop to walk through. The rondavels were generally grouped together in a residential area that was some distance away from the maize fields. There were no roads, only paths through the grass worn away by barefooted boys and women. The women and children of the village wore blankets dyed in ocher; only the few Christians in the village wore Western-style clothing. Cattle, sheep, goats, and horses grazed together in common pastures. The land around Qunu was mostly treeless except for a cluster of poplars on a hill overlooking the village. The land itself was owned by the state. With very few exceptions, Africans at the time did not enjoy private title to land in South Africa but were tenants paying rent annually to the government. In the area, there were two small primary schools, a general store, and a dipping tank to rid the cattle of ticks and diseases.
Much of Madiba’s description remains true. The village is a cluster of rondavels surrounded by the open veld and rolling hills of the Wild Coast.
Part of Madiba’s legacy in Qunu is the Nelson Mandela Youth and Heritage Centre, the second component of the Nelson Mandela Museum. There, the LRC (with the assistance of the Transkei Land Service Organisation – TRALSO) hosted women from surrounding rural communities in a workshop on the proposed Traditional Courts Bill. The Bill attempts to reform the law to support and enhance customary courts and align them with the Constitution. It was introduced to Parliament in March 2008, but withdrawn because there was not enough time to complete the legislative and consultative procedures required by the Constitution. There was also criticism by public interest groups that the Bill failed to consult rural people and to address the problems rural women face in customary courts. The Bill will be reintroduced in 2009. For this reason, the LRC is consulting with rural women and preparing submissions and recommendations for Parliament.
As is often the case, I played a very minor role in the workshop because it was 90% in Xhosa. However, it was a remarkable experience to see women from these rural communities debating and sharing about their experiences in traditional governance. Some of the issues that arose: What should be done when there is more than one system of customary law within a court’s boundaries? Should the customary courts have a prescribed quota of women? Should people should be able to opt out of customary courts? What can be done to improve access to justice, particularly for women and in rural areas?
