Spaceship to the Great Karoo

The Great Karoo enticed me back with its strange natural and human landscapes. I returned to the semi-desert in the height of summer for a weekend aimed at visiting the Valley of Desolation and the Owl House of Nieu Bethesda.

On Friday afternoon after work, I rented a car and rapidly covered the 250km from Grahamstown to Graff Reinet. The landscape turned bigger and drier (Karoo is Khoesaan for "land of thirst") towards the fifth song on the CD. My first encounter was with the owners of Le Jardin Backpackin', an older couple that has turned their home into the backpackers' where I stayed on Friday night. I made a quick dinner then chatted with them and their dogs in the kitchen as I ate and drank half my bottle of screw-cap wine (an essential when backpacking in South Africa). Towards ten, I retired to my room to sleep between the green sheets and flowered bedspread.

I set my alarm to wake the next morning to visit Camdeboo National Park, a new addition to SAN Parks. I did a quick game drive (monkeys, wildebeest, kudu, hartebeest, springbok, ostrich, guinea fowl, mountain zebra), but the focus was the haunting Valley of Desolation. Its rugged pinnacles of dolerite formed by volcanic magma and erosion stand in stark contrast to the backdrop of the endless Karoo plains. I did the one-hour circuit walk along the edge of the valley, taking several stops to reflect on the scenery. Along the way, I met another lone traveller – Pedro, a British born in Spain (hence the name) who co-owns a bar in Bristol so can travel for about half the year. We headed back to Graff Reinet for a leisurely lunch (Karoo lamb chops) and a few drinks in two garden restaurants, then I hit the road again.

At a certain point on the N9, there is a sign with an arrow pointing to a dirt road on the left that says "Nieu Bethesda". It is a small strange town with no petrol station or ATM but plenty of endless starry nights and transplanted artists. What drew me to Nieu Bethesda was Helen Martins (1897-1976) and her "Owl House". After years spent in an unhappy marriage and caring for her severe father, her life suddenly erupted at about age 50 with colour and sculpture. She had the vision (and courage, in this conservative wilderness) to bring light and colour to her personal surroundings. She worked obsessively with the help of local workmen, grinding bottles and mixing cement, to fill her home and yard with coloured glass and cement sculptures, mostly facing toward Mecca. At age 78, suffering from arthritis and blindness, she killed herself by drinking caustic soda. Today she is considered South Africa's foremost Outsider Artist, someone with no art training who creates fantastic, raw, visionary art working outside of the mainstream art world.



















Besides Miss Helen, Nieu Bethesda still has its share of interesting immigrants and locals. On Saturday, I met a lovely family that now runs the book and art store, recently moved from the Cape Town area to try out the town for a year. The mother has lived in many different places and the father repairs violins and preaches in the town and township churches. She invited me to the weekly braai at the tennis club, where I chatted movies and high school romances with her 16-year old son and met other locals. On Sunday, I walked across the suspension bridge to Two Goats Deli & Brewery, run by a Cape Town immigrant. I had a lovely lunch, barefoot in the garden, enjoying his homemade beer (alcoholic and ginger) and goat's cheeses, and kudu salami made by a guy in Graff Reinet. Full of good food, drink, and interesting sights, I jumped in the car to drive back to Grahamstown in the late afternoon light.

The Old Gaol Slaughter

One day in January, a message arrived: "You are cordially invited to the chicken slaughter at the Old Gaol as decapitator general. 6pm sharp." I was invited to slaughter a chicken.

The background to this began in northern Ghana in 2007. A village woman gave my co-intern Leemor and me the gift of a white chicken. We had to decide what to do with the chicken, and had a conversation about how people have become increasingly disconnected from what we eat. Most of us buy our food in shops, where meat appears in shiny packages and fruits and vegetables are organized into neat piles. Many people have never eaten something they have killed or planted themselves. What is meat? When you buy it, you give little thought to the life cycle of the animal or how it was slaughtered. Living with Leemor that year increased my awareness of how meat is prepared, since she ate only kosher foods. In Milan, I used to shop at a fantastic gastronomy shop called "Buzzi", whose owner said he bought his salami from a place that slaughtered the pigs on Saturday because the animals were more relaxed and so the meat was sweeter.

Leemor and I never got to slaughter our white chicken. Through a series of mishaps, we lost the chicken to a local boy who had promised to take care of it overnight then slaughter and cook it with us the next day. Since then, I have had the desire to eat meat that I have slaughtered myself. Some would call this morbid, but should I have the right to eat meat if I can't face the animal?

One night last September while drinking at the Old Gaol, this subject somehow came up. A few days later, Emily showed up at my door with a chicken for me! However, the chicken was young and had to grow up. I couldn't take care of it in my apartment (although I tried for a few nights), so I gave it to someone to raise for me in the township, where it is currently still growing fat.

Four months later, some friends decided (for me) that this was going to be the night. They bought a chicken and instructed me to show up at the Old Gaol. When I arrived, I was presented with an ax and a drawing on top of a tree stump to practise my aim. After a few practice swings, we went to get the chicken.

Killing a chicken is not as easy as you'd think. Facing the chicken on the chopping block, I suddenly trembled with anxiety and adrenaline as I realized I was going to take its life. I pushed myself to go through with it. The ax was heavy and the neck area was surprisingly small, so I needed both force and precision. The first blow lacked both. Luckily, the second and third blows succeeded. The chicken landed on the ground, its legs moving futilely in the air for a few seconds. It was dead, and my heart pounded with relief.

We plucked the chicken by plunging it into a pail of hot water and cleaned its insides. It was fascinating to see how the animal was made up; there was a sachet of uneaten maize in its throat and a cluster of underdeveloped eggs in its belly (which could be eaten and had whites and yolk just like mature eggs). I thought of how we humans are so similar; we also have a throat, stomach, liver, intestines. We fried the insides, and the boys fired up a braai for the meat. The running chicken became a drumstick in my plate. Thus the circle of one small life.

Tanzanian Christmas

Stepping out of the plane into Dar es Salaam, I was dazed by a blast of heat. It was like a re-entry into the Africa I experienced in Ghana, with those things that are "typical" of the continent: heat, humidity, sickness, scarce water, intermittent electricity… I was back in Africa to celebrate Christmas! Since this entry covers a lot, I've divided it into the main parts of the two weeks: Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, and Selous Game Reserve.

ZANZIBAR

Cristiano, Prasanna (two other CBA interns) and I intended to pass the holidays in Tanzania, with a rough plan to spend a few days in Zanzibar and visit a game park. But as is often the case in Africa, things did not exactly work out as planned.

In transit that morning in the Joburg airport, I got a text message from Cristiano: "Taya and Prasanna will pick you up from the airport. I'm not well." This did not prepare me for the state I found him in that night – pale and sweating in bed with a fever of nearly 40°C. It was clear he could not join us on the ferry to Zanzibar the next morning. So I showered with a trickle of water, used the toilet that I couldn't flush, turned on the A/C and climbed under the mosquito net. Early the next day, Prasanna and I headed to Zanzibar, two interns in a strange land.

Although Zanzibar is now part of Tanzania, they still make you pass customs to enter. Once you do, you're on an island paradise. Zanzibar is a dream. I've never seen such aqua blue water – sometimes milky, sometimes fluorescent. Stone Town is mysterious with its narrow winding streets (where we endlessly got lost), shrouded women, and calls to prayer. There is fresh seafood, spicy sauces, exotic juices.

We spent the first day in Stone Town with a detour by boat to Prison Island for the afternoon. Prison Island is the site of an old prison (apparently never used), a beautiful beach, and a turtle sanctuary full of giant stinking turtles that you can feed and that frequently have loud sex. Back in Stone Town, we hoped to eat street food at the famous Forodhani gardens but were disappointed to find that they were closed for renovations until god-knows-when. But we heard about a night market on the street beside the Old Fort, so we returned there that evening for crab claws, fish skewers, Zanzibari pancakes, and sugar cane juice spiced with ginger.

The next day, we went on a Spice Tour with the (apparently legendary) Mr. Mitu, which took us through the nearby spice plantations to see and taste the plants, then served lunch and brought us to a secluded beach for the afternoon. On the way back, Mr. Mitu's entourage flagged down a dala-dala for Prasanna and I to take to the north of the island. We grabbed our bags, I hitched up my sarong, and we ran. The dala-dala dropped us on the road and we walked about 20 minutes in the heat down a dusty road to arrive at our resort, Kendwa Rocks. We must have been a strange sight, an Indian man and a Chinese woman with backpacks, beachwear, our feet covered in dust and a straw bag full of spices. There is not much to say about Kendwa except that it was incredible blue sea, white sand, and sun.

IN & AROUND DAR ES SALAAM

On Christmas Eve, Prasanna and I returned to Dar to find Cristiano feeling much better on a pharmaceutical cocktail prescribed for him by a Cuban doctor. It's still not clear what he had, but it may have been a strange form of pneumonia. Unfortunately, the electricity was out so we couldn't make Christmas Eve dinner. Luckily, there was electricity in random parts of the building, including the kitchen of Cristiano's friend Wies, so we went to cook and hang out there. We then passed a sleepless night in the heat, waiting for the power to come back.

We had our Christmas Day miracle! At 7am, the electricity came back with a roar of fans and air conditioners. We all ran to the living room, cheering! Then went back to bed to catch a couple hours of sleep.

We decided to treat ourselves for Christmas at the Hotel Kilimanjaro Kempinski, the most expensive hotel in Dar. We figured they would have Christmas trees, maybe a fancy buffet, and (very important) air conditioning. I realize this was very "ex-pat" of us and most Tanzanians never enjoy such luxuries, but far away from home and family, it was comforting and I think we did well to pamper ourselves. We had a lovely Asian-style meal at the Oriental Restaurant in the Kempinski (I had hot & sour soup and my first proper sashimi since leaving Vancouver), finishing with individual chocolatey desserts.

The next few days were spent exploring Dar and the surrounding areas. We visited Bagamoyo (a crumbling colonial seaside town), dined at "A Tea Room" in the Indian area, shopped for Tanzanian souvenirs, and saw Kariakoo market. Prasanna left Tanzania on December 27. Cristiano and I spent a few more days around Dar, walking through the city, lounging at the stunning pool at the Golden Tulip Hotel, and visiting nearby beaches at Kipepeo and Bongoyo Island.

THE SELOUS

Studying the travel guides, Cristiano and I were enchanted by the idea of a boat safari on the Rufiji River. We decided to spend my last few days in Tanzania at the Selous Game Reserve.

Selous was an adventure, to say the least. Game parks in Tanzania are incredibly expensive (most people travel in private planes, park fees are upwards of US$50/day, and lodging easily costs US$500/night), so Cristiano and I had to find a way to do it relatively budget. We found a backpackers' special at the Selous Mbega Camp; the condition was that you had to arrive by public transport. Our first clue to how uncomfortable the journey would be was our trek to buy bus tickets at Sudan Market in the Temeke suburb of Dar. We searched for the "Morning Star Bus Company" ticket outlet, and found it in one of the shacks selling biscuits and drinks, including a most dodgy-sounding "Chemi-Cola".

Our bus left at 4am on New Year's Day. We had a tame New Year's Eve eating giant Tanzanian king prawns and lentils (an Italian New Year's tradition) then watching fireworks around Dar on Cristiano's roof. We caught a couple hours of sleep before we had to trek back out to Sudan Market to catch the bus. As mZungu ("white person" – although I was more often called mChina or "ahhh-chingchingchong!" and Cristiano was sometimes called mArabo), we had the automatic privilege of the front seats in the bus. It is only 250km from Dar to the Selous, but it took 7 long hours, half of which were over a violently bumpy dirt road. I have ridden public transport in other parts of Africa, but I think it's possible that they cram the vehicles the fullest in Tanzania. The seats were full of people and the bus was full of cargo, yet they kept piling people on top of people on top of the cargo in the aisles. I had a perfect view of the dried fish buzzing with flies on the dashboard that someone would surely eat after 7 hours in the sun, and of the uneven dirt road stretching ahead of us that we kept bouncing along at dangerous angles at seemingly breakneck speed.

We finally arrived at Mloka, the nearest town to the Selous, where our lodge picked us up in their 4x4. We stayed in a safari tent in the treetops that had generator power between 6-10pm and a full bathroom with (brown) running water. We booked a boat safari for that evening and a full-day driving safari for the next day.

The boat safari was peaceful, except for the hippo we saw charging someone's canoe! (We were safe because our boat had a motor, which the hippos are scared of.) Hippos are dangerous animals with bad eyesight, reputed to cause the most deaths in Africa each year. Luckily, the man we saw crossing the river escaped. We saw hippos, crocodiles, monkeys, and many bird species. Our guide had an incredible eye and was able to spot the smallest bird from across the river.












The driving safari was a little disappointing. Being the most budget option, perhaps our lodge did not have the best guides and vehicles. Our 4x4 had no shocks and a dead battery – our guide could not turn off the engine, so we were stuck with the sound of it running the entire day. We saw impala, giraffes, zebra, buffalo and elephants (although these were far away). But the highlight was the group of female lions that we found resting under a tree. I was terrified when our guide drove right up to them, but the lions only looked at us. They were remarkably like cats, sleeping and stretching in the shade, but clearly much more powerful.

The next day was another brutally early morning (3am) and the bus ride home. We were glad to arrive in Dar alive.

RETURN TO SOUTH AFRICA: THOUGHTS ON COMING HOME

Landing in South Africa was like returning to the developed world. Stepping into the Joburg airport, I ordered a cappuccino and four cheese & olive muffin at vida é caffé and noticed how everything moved more quickly. The boys behind the counter joked as they busily made lattés, slid drinks across the counter, yelled out order numbers. The temperature was comfortable and you could hear/understand the voice announcing flights on the PA system. Going to the public toilet was a pleasant experience!

I also noticed again the multi-racialness of South Africa. I must admit that when I first arrived, I was a bit disappointed. I felt like this was not "real Africa" – the Africa of the Blacks, I suppose, that you get sucked into and fall head over heels in love with. But the attitudes here reflect a much more sophisticated consciousness and relationship between races that goes beyond calling mZungu at you in the street. For better or for worse, people are aware – of what racism is, what it feels like, how important it is in their lives. Over the last 4 months, I have grown to love this country where nothing – especially race – is ever simple. South Africa has become another home.

The Mass Grahamstown Exodus

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.

JOZI

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.

Lesotho: Kingdom in the Sky

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!

Heaven on the Wild Coast

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…

Traditional Courts in the New South Africa

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?