SOUTH AFRICAN SOJOURN
Tomas Gayton
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CAPETOWN
I arrive in Capetown in mid December, the high season for tourism, and settle into the Ashanti Lodge in the Garden District,
my home away from home. The Ashanti Lodge is a glorious old colonial mansion with reasonable priced single, double and
dormitory accommodations nestled at the foot of the steep rugged southern sand stone slope of Table Mountain.
It is also a short walk from the Garden District to Long Street in the heart of Capetown’s funky downtown where I can buy a
spicy shwarma sandwich on my way to Mama Africa, the popular restaurant and night club, where a Congolese band is
playing a mesmerizing medley of bebop and reggae rhythms to a jumpin’ interracial crowd.
Sitting in the lodge’s congenial Kumasi bar/café sipping wine or roibos (a local herbal tea) I watch snowy clouds cover the
summit of Table Mountain driven by whistling southeasterly winds over the edge into ethereal billowing beauty. I find myself
in a place where Mother Nature dominates the scenery not high rise buildings and skyscrapers.
On a cloudless sunny day I hike up the rocky trail to the summit of Table Mountain and witness the flaming sun sink into the
obsidian sea. I see what I never saw before, a vertical column of gold intersecting the color spangled ribbons crossing the
horizon.
The lodge is a tiny intersection in the world where I meet travelers seeking refuge from the chilling cold of winter and
European volunteers working for NGO’s in the fields of education, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment including counseling
for the orphaned children of HIV/AIDS victims.
A few of my new found friends from the Lodge attend my poetry reading at Capetown’s African culture café Off Moroka
Café Africaine on Adderley St.. The event is well attended by local white, colored (mixed race) and black South Africans.
Richard Ishmail is the owner of the café which is one of very few non-white owned businesses in Capetown (md@offmoroka.
co.za).
Thanks to the Ashanti’s travel staff and amiable owner, Lisa Mason, I am able to visit most of the sites I planned on seeing and
a few others not on travel guides. Lisa also runs a foundation that provides aid to children living in the townships. For further
information contact her at (Ashanti @ iafrica.com).
Capetown is a modern multi-racial cosmopolitan city on the southern tip of Africa. However ten years after apartheid was
abolished and Nelson Mandela was elected president the country is as divided socio-economically as before. Whites own the
businesses and the farms and live in luxurious homes in the hills while blacks work in the kitchen and till the soil and live in the
townships. The ubiquitous Mercedes and BMW’s seen on the streets of downtown Capetown are driven by whites not blacks
and few blacks visit downtown Capetown at night or during the day.
I tour District 6 where a large colored community was forcibly evicted, their dwellings destroyed and moved to the West Cape
flatlands in the 1970’s and 80’s. I tour the townships to see how Capetowns’ two/thirds, black/colored communities survive.
The teeming townships are home to millions of black South Africans who live in poverty on the outskirts of South Africa’s
major cities. Families are crammed into small iron sheeted cubicles waiting hopefully for education, jobs and a better life.
I make the mandatory pilgrimage to Robben Island. Tears run down my cheeks onto the stone prison yard as I grip the bars on
Nelson Mandela’s former tiny prison cell and ponder how he survived 18 years in this cold drafty cell sleeping on a slender mat
and covered by a woolen blanket.
Nobel Peace prize winner Nelson Mandela transcended his 27 years of captivity and suffering to lead his nation on the path of
penance and reconciliation. “Nelson Mandela is the sun whose gravity holds the disparate elements of Southern African society
in peaceful orbit.”
KNYSNA
I drive up the Eastern Cape past Port Elizabeth to the idyllic coastal town of Knysna where tourists and wealthy whites dig the
scene on the harbor with its internet cafes, fantastic art galleries and sea food restaurants. After consuming a ton of oysters,
mussels, calamari and saffron rice washed down with fine white wine I head up the hill to visit the proudly promoted largest
Rastafarian community in South Africa.
At Judah Square I share Jah’s sacrament of love with the brethren in his holy temple and groove on the reggae djimba beat on
the wooden deck overlooking the plots of tall green dagga plants. “Like one love experience for the brethren too hung up on
Hip Hop, Africa is calling you home.”
TRANSKEI
I then head north along the coast to Nelson Mandela’s birthplace and the heartland of the Xhosa people, Transkei. I drive
through the small port town of East London passing a statue of Steve Biko standing with hand outreached in front of city hall.
In Mpande, Transkei some friends and I attend a Songoma ceremony celebrated with big bass drums and other percussion in a
traditional round thatched hut. The female shaman dances barefoot while performing rituals and offering fire and incense to the
ancestral spirits. We end the evening dancing with the shaman and local folks then walk on a muddy road back to the Kraal
overlooking the Indian Ocean.
NAMIBIA
After touring Capetown, the Eastern Cape and their teeming townships I travel north to the desert nation of Namibia.
THE SILENCE OF THE DUNES
I sit naked in the sun on the summit of a dune
stunned by the silence of steep sandy slopes
THE WHITE HIGHWAY
I’m riding on the white highway
into the blue sky
of the red Kalahari
where San people leave no tracks
and there is no traffic
only the whisper of the wind
on surface of sand
After visiting the Namib sand dunes on Namibia’s west coast and the Kalahari on its southeastern frontier with Botswana and
South Africa I travel north to the Angolan frontier. There I encounter the Himba people and their ancient culture.
HIMBA HEALING
My guide, K.K. Muhuka, takes me to the Himba village of Ohlingumure in Kaokoland many miles north of the last paved road
in northwestern Namibia. The Himba are a tribe of nomadic pastoralists who hold tenaciously to their rich cultural traditions.
They are world renowned for their physical beauty, fine jewelry and traditional life style.
The proud Himba people don’t bathe or shower. Water is scarce in this region of the world. They use smoke to clean their
bodies every morning. Herbs and smoldering coals are placed in a container that produces smoke called ombware. It looks like
a small pyramid plaited from twigs. The Himba stand and sit in the sweet, musty smoke and their naked bodies are cleansed by
it. Then they cover their bodies with a mixture of butter fat and red ocher.
They also use herbal medicine and massage therapy to heal and cure disease and illness. For example they mix elephant dung
with warm water to make a plaster that is applied to parts of the body afflicted by gout.
The Himbas view sex as therapeutic. “Having sex is like eating; you need it.” However having sex during the day is bad luck.
“You feel much better after sex. You are not stressed anymore. You can rest peacefully.”
HOLY FIRE (OKORUWO)
The Holy Fire serves as the medium for communicating with the ancestral spirits. The Himba are an animist society based on
the cult of ancestors. All fires in the village are lit by the Holy Fire. The Onganga, witchdoctor or shaman, performs all
ceremonies and rituals associated with the Holy Fire.
The Holy Fire is used to heal and to celebrate and bless all major life events: birth, circumcision, marriage, death. The concept
of death is very different from the Christian one. When a man physically dies, he is still present in the homestead. He still has
duties to perform for two more generations to come. His name will still be called upon regularly. The Oruzo (patriclan) place
each person in the position of having access to the infinite via his/her ancestors.
The oldest living member of the patrilineage segment is designated as Omuini Wokuruwo
(Keeper or possessor of the Fire) and must preside at all functions pertaining to the Holy Fire. To each successive generation
the Fire will be known as the Fire of the most recently deceased Keeper. His name will be invoked during the prayers to the
deceased. The living Keeper, together with the deceased Keepers (whose names will be successively invoked as far back as
they are known) form an unbroken chain stretching from the living generation all the way back to Makuru or God with whom
the origin of humankind began. Blessings from Makuru and the deceased ancestors are available to the living members of the
patrilineage.
I felt right at home in a Himba hut with the Himba women who wear elaborate jewelry around their necks and leather and hide
skirts. They do not wear shoes but their ankles must always be covered. Ankles are their most private parts. They’re even
more private than their genitals.
Now that I am back in San Diego I miss the warmth and natural beauty of the Himba people. Regrettably, the Himba traditional
culture is threatened by the forces of globalization and modernization. I am grateful that I was able to share their inspirational
spirit for a brief time before returning to Dubya’s new world order.