The First Born Takes

South Africa's Constitution has a fantastic Bill of Rights. But sometimes a series of injustices, already transpired, cannot be completely cured.

The rule of primogeniture (Latin: primus, first + genitus, born) is the exclusive right of inheritance belonging to the eldest son. This was the system of intestate succession followed in African customary law before the Constitution. The rule was overturned by the South African Constitutional Court in a case called Bhe and Others v Khayelitsha Magistrate and Others, [2004] ZACC 17 as discriminatory against women. However, the law could only be declared unconstitutional retrospective to 27 April 1994, which was when the interim South African Constitution came into effect at the end of apartheid.

Enter our client, Mr. X, a black man. He was dealt one of the many injustices under apartheid when his land was expropriated by the state in the 1980s. The apartheid government implemented systematic racial segregation by declaring specified areas “Indian”, “White”, or “Coloured” areas and establishing Bantustans, or black homelands. The LRC was assisting Mr. X with his claim for restitution of the property to the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights, which was set up in the spirit of the new South African Constitution.

Mr. X inherited the land in the 1950s from his father under the rule of primogeniture. However, Mr. X has two sisters -- whose existence the LRC only learned of last year. The Commission has generally taken a firm position that it will not exclude women from the restitution of land. Thus our conundrum.

Legally, the Commission may have little basis for insisting that Mr. X share the property with his sisters since he inherited the land in the 1950s, long before women had equality rights under the Constitution. However, the LRC would be in an uncomfortable position if we had to argue in court against the Commission that his sisters should be excluded from sharing the land based on the archaic and unconstitutional rule of primogeniture. The spirit of the LRC is to work for the mistreated and excluded. That is why we took Mr. X’s case over 10 years ago. But that is also why we now had to give it up.

It was sad to give up Mr. X’s case after the LRC had spent over 10 years working on it and was just reaching the exciting stage of court application against the Commission. It is even sadder that Mr. X would rather pay a private lawyer rather than share the property with his sisters. But I can understand his position as the original dispossessed. And that is his legal right.

ESCAPETOWN

Living in a small place like Grahamstown, sometimes the weekend brings a longing for big city life. Late on a Friday night two weeks ago, I was drinking wine at my apartment with Emily and Paddy (a journalism professor at Rhodes) when – after plenty of wine – the crazy idea occurred to Emily and me to fly to Cape Town the next morning. We booked our flights just before midnight, and at 6am the next morning we were off!

It was a whirlwind trip that was an introduction to, rather than a tour of, Cape Town. Having lived in cities all my life, we set about satisfying all the big-city cravings I’ve been deprived of during a month of tiny Grahamstown – mainly food and shopping! We shopped at a few boutiques on Long and Kloof Streets and at the mega-mall at the Waterfront. I took the opportunity to buy a few warmer items as I have been surprised by the COLD COLD weather in the Eastern Cape. We stumbled upon a friendly Capetonian who told us about the Saturday market at the Old Biscuit Mill then kindly gave us a lift there in his glittering SUV. It was full of little boutiques, funky shops and galleries, and a huge organic and specialty foods market! The lovely thing about a visit to Cape Town is that you can actually do your grocery shopping there and bring it home to Grahamstown. I think I almost choked with excitement when I saw a table full of pâtés and specialty meats. We picked up an assortment of lovely things like olives, cheese, pestos, salami, and fresh artichokes that are not readily available in Grahamstown. We caught a minibus taxi and headed downtown to our hotel, a cool boutique called the Grand Daddy. On Saturday night, Emily and I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving in style with oysters and sushi at the rather pretentious Beluga Restaurant.

My first impression of Cape Town is of a cool metropolis with a stunning natural setting between the ocean and Table Mountain – in some ways, it reminds me of Vancouver. What doesn’t remind me of Vancouver is the racial segregation. I don’t think I’ve been anywhere in Africa where I saw so few black Africans. I suppose that we also have a stark contrast between rich and poor in Vancouver – I think of clearly ill people begging for change on Robson Street – but it is just not on such racial lines.

Know Your Status

The other day I did something very South African: I went for an HIV/AIDS test.

The place to go in Grahamstown is the Raphael Centre, a non-governmental organization for people living with HIV/AIDS. I decided to go check it out, and why not? Get tested.

The Raphael Centre is located on a quiet residential street. I entered and told the woman at reception, “I’d like to get tested.” I was immediately guided to the counsellor’s room, where the counsellor asked a few questions like: “Are you sexually active? How many partners have you had in the past month? Four months? Did you use a condom the last time you had sex?” I then went to see the nurse, who administered the test. She took a drop of my blood and put it into a notch on a small plastic slide, then added a drop of test solution. While waiting for the results, we chatted. She educated me on the “window period”, the three-month period immediately after contracting HIV/AIDS where it might not show up on a test because your body has not yet produced the antibodies. I could see my blood seeping across an open slot on the plastic slide, reach the other side, then come back. A small line appeared.

The strange thing was how nervous I felt while waiting for the results, even though I knew my chances of testing positive were virtually nil. I suppose this is the reason so many people who actually are at risk don’t get tested. HIV/AIDS is very much a part of the consciousness in South Africa. The statistics are frightening – about 20% of the population is infected, and rumour is that 1 of 6 students at Rhodes are positive. Advertisements encouraging people to practise safe sex and get tested are everywhere. And so is the fear.

I recently read this passage from Stephen Lewis’s book Race Against Time (pp. 53-54):

On the floor of the hut lies a young woman – always young – in her twenties or thirties, so wan and emaciated as to be unable to lift either hand or head. I bend down, painfully inadequate to the circumstance, and touch her brow, uttering some pointless banality which is intended to soothe, and then as I step back, looking around me, I see her children, all her children, standing in the darkened shadows, watching their mother die.

How do they ever recover? The death is long, agonizing, and filled with indignity. The children wash their mother, they clean her up when she’s incontinent (an experience of excruciating embarrassment for both mother and children), they search everywhere for an aspirin to relieve the pain of some opportunistic infection, and then, horrified, gaping, they stand in the darkened shadows, and watch their mother die.

Many of us know the pain of losing a loved one. Five months ago, I lost my mother to cancer. They were painful times but we were also surrounded by love and comfort. She passed away in a hospice, where nurses provided 24-hour care and gave us hugs and cookies. I realize how lucky we were and I cannot grasp how great the pain of these orphans.

I tested negative.

On my way out, I made a small donation and spoke to someone about volunteering for the Centre. I learned that the Raphael Centre – despite providing one of the most important services in South Africa – is not government-funded, and that everyone who works at the Centre is HIV positive. I will hopefully be assisting the Centre with throwing a children’s party in December.

Much Addo About Elephants

Here are some pictures of the wildlife at Addo Elephant National Park, about one hour’s drive out of Grahamstown. We saw tons (literally) of elephants, plus warthogs, kudu (stunningly beautiful with their spiral horns), ostrich, tortoises, jackals, zebra, and lots of deer-like animals like the red hartebeest and bushbuck.

Kim and I rented a car to go there, and I took advantage of the traffic-less park to try driving on the left side of the road. It’s quite a twister as the steering wheel is on the right, but the stick shift are still in the middle and the clutch, brake and gas pedals and gears are all in the same relative position. What I found most challenging is remembering not to veer off the left shoulder of the road, since the driver’s seat is on the right sight of the car and I’m used to a perspective of the road from the left side of the car. I think it may be a while before I take a stab at navigating left turns and traffic circles and such!

Family Time in a Small Town

Sorry for the delay in updates but there have been two film festivals in town at Rhodes University over the past couple of weeks -- which means that, for once, there has been something to do in Grahamstown! I've seen a number of films and documentaries including "Suffering and Smiling", "Thomas Sankara: The Upright Man", "The War on Democracy", "Four Wives, One Man", and "Bamboozled". One of the festivals with the catchy name FilmFest 08: More Zen, Less Phobia continues and next week will show "Up the Yangtzhe", a Canadian documentary about China that I missed at last year's Vancouver International Film Festival because it was sold out.

Last weekend, Kim and I headed out to Bathurst to stay with Sarah, our supervisor and director of the Grahamstown LRC. Sarah, Monty, and their beautiful blond son Dan live on a farm just outside Bathurst. Monty’s parents and brother have houses on the same big property. “Welcome to paradise”, said Sarah as we pulled up to the house – and it really was. You really miss family time when you’re living abroad, so it was extra lovely to pass the weekend at their house enjoying simple pleasures like cooking together, reading, picking salad greens from the “tunnel” (where Monty grows native and food plants), watching Tom and Jerry with Dan.

One reason for the trip was a farewell party for a girl named Ronelle to be held on Saturday night at the Bathurst Arms, the local pub. The Bathurst Arms is the drinking spot in town… well, the only one since the Pig & Whistle closed down. It’s a classic small town pub – everyone knows each other, dogs roam around, and if you’re lucky (like we were) you’ll be treated to an impromptu jam session by a few local boys. We had a grand time, and at one point I even got drunk enough to pick up the djembe and start playing with the boys.

Sunday was a quiet day troubled by a few hangovers. The main event of the day was a big fish braai that Monty cooked up on a fire outside. It was my first South African braai and Monty did it justice.

A Lekker Day at the Cow Farm

As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve joined Grahamstown’s hiking club. The hiking club is not only a good way to socialize and see the country, but it’s also great bang for your buck. It’s generally difficult (and can be unsafe) to get around South Africa without your own car. The club organizes group hikes (safety in numbers) and provides carpool transport for a small (very small) fee.

On Sunday, I went on my first hike with the club. I made my way to Pick & Pay at 7:40am where I found an eclectic group of people that ranged in both age (from single digits to a few grey-hairs) and nationality (Swedish, Swiss, and another Canadian, whose husband sported a "Hockey Night in Canada" hat!). We drove 20 minutes out of town to Radway Green, the farm of Rodney and Leonie Yendall. The Yendalls had a pineapple farm, but switched to cattle farming a few years ago because pineapple farming was no longer sustainable. Their farm was surrounded by game farms. Leonie, who has lived in the area for 20 years, guided us on an improvised interpretive walk.

It quickly became apparent that I was, for the first time since arriving, in the midst of several Afrikaans speakers. Afrikaans developed from the High Dutch of the 17th century but has also incorporated vocabulary from French, English, African, and Asian languages – it’s a strong and very expressive language. South Africa is very colourful linguistically; it has 11 official languages! They are (as listed in section 6 of the South African Constitution): Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu. Languages are clearly an important part of the culture as they are one of the founding provisions of the Constitution. It’s incredible the rate at which people switch languages, both in real life and on television. Accents also abound.

We roamed around the Yendalls’ property for about 5 hours, with a short tea break beside a stream. It was a lovely hike and I am sure to head out with the hiking club again. Here are some pictures of the completely lekker day!

(For those of you who don't know, clicking on a photo will enlarge it.)


(1) Warm welcome
(2) Fearless hikers
(3) Old aloe plants








(4) Former pineapple plants
(5) Aloe trees closer up -- likely over 50 years old
(6) The old pineapple farm




(7) Large grasshopper
(8) Crawly creature that excreted brown goo when poked
(9) Hanging with cows

Lessons in Cleaning

I was looking for someone trustworthy and reliable to clean my apartment. Ethel (who cleans at the LRC office) suggested her sister-in-law, Joyce. Joyce came for the first time on Thursday morning. I showed her my cleaning supplies – broom, mop, rags, assorted cleaners – but she was preoccupied by something else.

“Do you have any bread?” she said.

I was taken aback but thought she might not have had breakfast, so I told her she could have some bread. I then left for work. I came back after an hour to check that everything was all right. “Where’s the sugar?” she asked. I replied, “Sorry, I don’t keep sugar.” I could see that she had a whole spread out – my tea, milk, bread, butter, and jam were all on the counter. She clearly was not embarrassed. So I told myself “Go with the flow” and returned to the office, somewhat confused, to ponder the situation.

That evening, Cristiano sent me a text message from Tanzania: “According to Sarah it is totally expected that you feed your cleaning lady.” (Cristiano and Sarah are other CBA interns on placements in Tanzania; Sarah is originally from South Africa.) After asking around, I’ve discovered this really is the case. I’ve also discovered that I’m paying Joyce more than double what domestic workers usually earn (I still have not decided what to do about this – whether to pay her less, or to keep her wage high since people earn so little). Next time she comes, I’ll be prepared with the sugar.

Weekend at the Old Jail

Grahamstown is a place where you have to find things to do. That’s why, faced with my first weekend in town with very few social connections, I made a cold call to a girl named Emily that I heard was the other Canadian in town. What began as a very quiet Saturday turned into a day of discovering Grahamstown and ended with a night in the old jail.

Grahamstown has basically 2 main streets: High Street and New Street. I live between the 2 streets on a small side street. The LRC is on High Street. On Saturday, I wandered aimlessly up and down the two streets, checking out the shops. It was the first hot day of spring. I found the Grahamstown Hospice thrift shop (I love thrift shops!) and bought a few books and trinkets, including a random little ceramic bowl with holes in it for R15 ($2). I signed up for the hiking club at Makana Tourism office. I was going to check out the Observatory museum but they apparently decided either not to open or to close early (which seems to be a common occurrence in Grahamstown).

I quickly discovered that everything closes at 1pm. Passing the Curves gym on New Street (yes, we have a Curves gym!), I was about to wander home when Emily called. She said, “I’m facing Curves; I have blond hair and am wearing a black shirt and shorts.” I said, “I’ll walk towards you, I’m the only Chinese girl in town.”

What followed was a very educational day on Grahamstown. Emily is studying journalism at Rhodes University and has been here since February. She is fabulous and friendly and gave me a grand grand tour of this town. We walked around and she told me where to go and not to go, how to act, where to buy what. She showed me the Botanical Gardens then took me up a dirt road to the Dam, where you can have a swim in the warmer months. We hiked to the top of a hill, where I saw a fabulous view of Grahamstown and its township on one side, and the rolling South African wilderness on the other side. We met her friend James, who bartends at the Old Gaol (pronounced “Jail”) Backpackers and studies anthropology at Rhodes. I saw the Old Gaol, a former jail that has been converted into a backpackers’ inn where the guests sleep in cells. There is a popular bar in the front that has an atmospheric hippie feel. Emily and I went for dinner in the lovely courtyard of Maxwell’s B&B, then returned to the Old Gaol to close it down.

The Battle for Pondoland

On Monday morning, I walked into the LRC office. Little did I know where work would take me by week’s end! First order of business was morning tea (a mandatory daily task – I can see I will be drinking a lot of rooibos in the coming months). My colleagues chattered about clients, politics, government Ministers, advocates, passed around the Daily Dispatch newspaper, threw about names and acronyms. Then everyone bustled off to their offices. I was set up in my temporary office in the boardroom/library and handed a few files to read.

The Grahamstown LRC is a small office of just 9 people including lawyers and staff. Sarah is the head attorney and my supervisor. The rest of the legal team consists of Kesentri (attorney), Rufus (paralegal), Sku (candidate attorney, i.e. articling student), and Kim. Then there are Nomfundo (administrator), Ethel (cleaner), and Cathy (secretary). What this means is that I will have plenty of responsibility! On Tuesday, I found myself drafting a long letter to the attorneys for the Minister of Finance for a constitutional litigation case, which was then passed on to our advocates in Johannesburg for review. (In South Africa, like Britain, there is a distinction between barristers and solicitors – they are called advocates and attorneys respectively.) On Wednesday, I was handed two land restitution claims and told to start drafting the founding affidavit to launch a court action against the Land Commission for failure to restore land to our clients.

Most excitingly, there was buzz around the office about a meeting in the Transkei on Friday with the Minister of Minerals and Energy and our clients, the Amadiba Crisis Committee. This is a high profile case that, luckily for me, has reached an apex of activity right now. The Lonely Planet even has a box about the conflict that states “[t]he major attraction for investors is the mineral-heavy sand-dune mine at Xolobeni, eyed by Australian mining company Mineral Commodities (MRC)”, then concludes ominously: “For now, Pondoland sits undisturbed, its rushing waterfalls still flowing towards the sea and its wildlife still roaming without hindrance. But if you have any plans to visit the area, better make it sooner rather than later.”

At present, the Director General, through power delegated by the Minister of Minerals and Energy, has granted a mining right to MRC which apparently will come into effect on October 31. Neither the community nor the LRC were informed about the grant; rather, the LRC caught wind of it through a press release on the Australian stock exchange. The LRC has launched an internal appeal to the Minister on behalf of the Amadiba Crisis Committee, a group of concerned residents of the Xolobeni area, and is also preparing to bring urgent court applications for an interdict (i.e. injunction) and review (i.e. judicial review).

So on Thursday morning, we loaded up the "bakkie" with backpacks and junk food and headed for Pondoland. Cows and horses gradually appeared on the road and monkeys and goats chattered by the roadside. I got to see the South African landscape on the 8-hour journey: Peddie, King Williams Town, Bisho, Butterworth, Nelson Mandela’s birth house at Mzevo, Umtata (where we picked up the delightful Pasika, a community worker and prodigious talker that kept us entertained for the rest of the drive), first glimpse of the ocean at Port St Johns, Lusikisik, Flagstaff, Bizana, and finally Port Edward, where we spent the night at a banana and macadamia farm. After a working dinner with a few community members and social worker John Clarke (of Sustaining the Wild Coast), we fell into bed in rustic farm bungalows.

We rose on Friday at 6am for a “brisk walk” and quick breakfast then packed into the bakkie. The road to the meeting was long, bumpy, and sometimes treacherous, but winded through beautiful rolling hills dotted with round mud huts. Hundreds of people arrived from all over the countryside and set up wooden benches under the big South African sky.

The meeting was mostly in Xhosa. I had the occasional translation from Rufus and Pasika, but relied mainly on tone of voice and body language to understand what was going on. The King (represented by an attorney), the Amadiba Crisis Committee, and many community members expressed strong opposition to the mining. Chief Lunga Baleni stated that he had no position then slunk off before the end of the meeting. Minister Sonjica started out rather arrogantly, interrupting the King’s representative with rude comments as he spoke, but evidently decided to change her stance when faced with such strong opposition. She paid lip service to consultation, stating she was “so disappointed”, had “no idea” what had been going on, and would “consult afresh” … she admitted the entire process leading up to the decision was flawed yet she refused to suspend the decision to grant the mining right! Then, before anyone had the chance to ask any difficult questions, she quickly packed up her entourage and drove off.

The upshot is that nothing has changed. The internal appeal to the Minister is probably futile (given her comments to the media in support of the mining), and the LRC will likely have to proceed with court action. We start drafting on Monday.

I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to my upcoming work at the LRC. Meeting with the Xolobeni community showed me the people behind our work, the people we are trying to give a voice. Sarah repeatedly told them, “We want to make your voices heard in the court of law”. It was also amazing to see Pondoland, its beautiful landscape, and the way of life its people are trying to preserve. I am so grateful – to the CBA, CIDA, and the LRC – to be part of an organization doing such remarkable work.

Hello, South Africa!

After 32 hours in air travel lalaland, I popped out into blue skies in South Africa. Another 2-hour car ride from Port Elizabeth and I arrived in Grahamstown, my home for the next 7 months. My journey was surprisingly smooth (made smoother with a 6-hour stop at the spa in LHR), and first impressions of South Africa (beginning with personal entertainment devices and actually edible chicken tikka on South African Airways, a decided improvement over Air Canada) were extremely pleasant. It appears to be a beautiful country with stunning coastline and mountains, vast wilderness, and friendly people. I have already seen antelope, kudu, and ZEBRA(!!!) along the highway from Port Elizabeth to Grahamstown!

I was greeted in Grahamstown by Kim, who let me into my apartment in Bertramstraat. Kim is last year’s CBA intern, who decided to stay after the LRC offered her a paid position. She lives a few doors down in the same complex, and her presence has been a constant comfort as I adapt to my new surroundings. I have a cute little loft apartment in the centre of Grahamstown, between New and High Streets and just 50 metres from the LRC office. It is tiny, but furnished and clean (I learned later that the LRC arranged to have it cleaned for my move-in) with electricity (pay as you go), hot water and even a television! I settled in and tried to nap, but was distracted by the setting sun and people speaking Xhosa as they passed my window so I hopped out of bed and knocked on Kim’s door. Off we went for dinner at the Rat & Parrot, a popular drinking spot for students of the local Rhodes University. A cup of rooibos at Kim’s then I crawled into bed at 11 pm, too exhausted to feel any emotion about being alone in a new place – which was probably a good thing.

I spent Sunday at Pick & Pay supermarket getting essentials for my new home (of which I've posted pictures). What I am struck by so far is how much of South Africa feels familiar: products (Pantene, Parmalat, Tampax!), architecture (colonial -- of course), but most of all, multiracial. I feel largely invisible as I walk along the street – no calls of “obruni”, “mzungu”, or “chingchangchong”! South Africa also appears relatively affluent and I can see why some call it the “Europe of Africa”.

However, I know that somewhere and underneath, there is the South Africa that I’ve read and heard about and that I came here to understand. On my flight over, I watched a documentary about Nelson Mandela and a movie called “Tsotsi” about a gang boy in Johannesburg. I think of the photos of the 1994 elections and footage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that I've seen. I have read some of the history behind land restitution claims, which I will likely work on at the LRC. I know I have arrived in a country with profound people and history, that has experienced hopelessness and hope and that still has its struggles – I hope to see and understand this a little over my next 7 months working at the LRC.