The weather has finally changed. Knock on wood, but it didn’t rain once all week. Instead, last Saturday brought the first warm weather of the changing season, hailing spring and the sunshine I’ve been longing for. It doesn’t help that next week is the last week of classes (wait. Whaaaat???)—the incredible sunshine, in conjunction with my increasing awareness that my time in Cape Town is quickly waning has amplified my desire to get out and see and do and feel as much of this city as I can. Sometimes I get really frustrated with myself for forgetting where I am. I sometimes regret that I chose to come to Cape Town, which is so westernized and hybridized that at times I almost feel like I’m back in Philadelphia. Sometimes I really wish I had chosen to go to Ghana or someplace like that. But then there are those moments that grab and shake me and open my eyes to the gripping realities of this world in black and white and coloured tones. These moments range from fleeting sparks of cognizance that slip away as easily as they came, if I’m not on my toes, to long stretches that ebb and flow throughout the week. The sunshine seems to have ushered one of those in. God love this incredible weather!
Last weekend I did what I said I wouldn’t and rented a car. Now, we all know that I’m a little cross-brained, and that terror that strikes my heart at the thought of driving on the left-hand side of the road has not subsided. (Although I have gotten very accustomed to veering left when climbing the stairs. I even find myself unnecessarily giving people the stink-eye when they go to their right. Come on, people, where are we?) Renting a car, however, is the easiest and cheapest way to get around outside of Cape Town, so when my friend Joy, who knows how to drive South Africa-style, offered to take the wheel to head out to a music festival last weekend, I gladly hopped on board. The hour’s drive to Darling, South Africa, was lovely and tense simultaneously. I swear, I really don’t think that South Africans realize that cars are 2,000-pound weapons of glass and steel. Not only are they maniacs behind the wheel; they’re maniacs as pedestrians. We were cheerfully driving along the highway when a group of teenagers appeared on the side of road and started darting into traffic. All I could do was let my jaw hang open as our car careened towards them, wondering whether they were trying to cross the road or not. We quickly realized that it was some sort of game, Russian Roulette on the N2. Joy’s a pro, though, and kept her cool. The guys were also pros, managing to avoid the speeding cars, running barefoot with gigantic smiles across their faces.
When I’d managed to wipe the sweat from my eyes and slow my heartbeat, we’d turned onto the dirt road leading to the wine estate where the music festival was being held. The view was breathtaking, incredibly bucolic. Bob Ross would have had a field day with all the “pretty little mountains” and the “happy little trees,” not to mention the rolling hills of purple and pink and yellow daisies. With the windows down and the breeze circulating through the car, we were the picture of typical happy hippie college students, ready for a weekend of camping and head-banging. The sight, however beautiful, was also distinctively South African. Not African—little discourse allows us the idea of rolling greenery as opposed to dryness and elephants, if not famine and disease. This site was South African. Looking upon it, I could not help but acknowledge its beauty and fertility, its ideal location. Any dummy can see just why taking the land out of black hands was a no-brainer to the apartheid government. The coloured township next to the estate, identifiable by its smallish but decent houses, appropriately painted in bright “colours,” emphasized the division, as did the absolute absence of black people from the entire area. I winced as I realized that the daredevils playing Most Extreme Elimination on the highway were probably from a nearby township, most likely one created in the removal of their families generations ago from the very land across which we were driving.
After setting up out tent (yes! I camp now!), we trekked across mud and hay to settle in for a night of live music. Incredible. SO much fun. Anybody remember that song “Save Tonight” by Eagle Eye Cherry? It was one of those grade school anthems. I used to get really excited when they would play it on Z-100… anyway, Eagle Eye Cherry was there, for whatever reason. The lead singer is Swiss, but I think the band is South African, and it was incredible to see them live. What was even better was to hear them play a reggae version of “Save Tonight.” Just when you thought the song couldn’t get any better! As the night wore on, the music got better and better. It was so refreshing to hear actual South African bands, since clubs and people in general listen to American music so much. (My roommates have yet to tire of the country, although Bokang did pull out some Marvin Gaye the other night.) After managing to move away from the mosh pit (and let me tell you, these South Africans can mosh with the best of them), we ended up getting a great spot to listen to two incredible bands whose style I can only describe as “fusion.” There was a Brazilian-Mozambiquan duo that drummed and rapped and swung their dreadlocks around, one of my personal favorites. There was a group that sang in Xhosa, and although I couldn’t understand most of it, I got super-pumped when the lead singer started clicking. And then there was Goldfish, the crème-de-la-crème of South African pop these days. Waiting until 1 am to see them was worth it. Think thumping techno and disco and Moby and Stevie Wonder and Grover Washington Jr. and those one-hit-wonder chicks you hear on the Top 40 stations whose songs immediately make you think of glitter and strobe lights. Watching the musicians switch from playing saxophone to mixing to singing was mind-blowing. You couldn’t help but jump and throw your hands in the air. The entire crowd rode of a wave of euphoria, moving and jumping and swaying as one, until the set ended and we all realized how exhausted we were. Joy, Tobie, Monica, and I wandered around in the dark trying to find our tent, obviously not smart enough to grab our flashlights before we headed out.
Heading back to the stage in the morning for some breakfast and more music before the drive back to Cape Town, I realized that almost all of the festival-goers were UCT students. It was great to see that weird, quiet kid who never says anything in class out having a good time, as well as that stuck-up chick who can’t seem to just shut up her senseless opinions and keep her hand down. UCT for a lot of people is all business, no play, and you could see how people really just need to let loose on the weekend. That’s universal. What I also saw, however, was that almost every last person at the festival was white. There were a bunch of older people sprinkled in here and there, the young-at-heart who were rocking the Birkenstocks and flowing shirts with the rest of us, but I saw maybe two black students in a group of perhaps 2,000. Again, I thought of where I was, Darling, South Africa, a place that even beyond 1994 and black government, is still strictly white. I suddenly noticed Afrikaans floating in and out of my range of hearing at a constant rate, heard some guys making a weird joke, calling one in their group “Siphosintle,” almost derogatively. Normally I wouldn’t think anything of it, but I know Sipho is a Xhosa name. UCT appears to be this perfect composition of the “new South Africa,” white and black learning side by side, educating themselves to both be the future of their country, working together in class, sitting on the Jammie steps in equal measure. A one-to-one ratio assures their equality and their unity. But what happens outside of class? “All of UCT is here,” my friend remarked. Correction: all of white UCT is here. Where are the black people? It wasn’t that they don’t listen to the music that was being presented; in fact, it was my black friends who’d introduced me to Goldfish. Was it that the ticket was too expensive? Too difficult to get there? Or was it that they just weren’t expected to go, it wasn’t for them, didn’t want to go? Then again, how is that any different from home, where you’d expect to find one audience at a Ben Folds concert and perhaps another at a 50 Cent concert? The beauty of the land and its history, a history I know to be true without having to read it in a book or see it in legislative signs, a history that the place itself, with its sunshine and daisies confirms, speaks volumes about a legacy intact. Nature’s wonder never tasted so bittersweet. Double back, again: I’m an American study abroad student in South Africa—could it be that I’m just seeing what I want to see? One African guy I know here said that he thought Americans were really racist; at least, all the Americans he’d met were. When I pressed him on that, I realized that he meant he believed us to be more race-conscious than South Africans. Big talk, in my opinion, since everyone I’ve met here has immediately tried to put me in a box according to what I look like, and has had a helluva time doing it. The statement was odd to me, since I can definitely say that race is much more of a sordid, steady issue here than it is at home. After thinking about my friend’s role as a guide for American students, however, I suppose that was a cogent conclusion. We come to South Africa knowing its history. We all want to see it in the flesh, and in attuning our minds to this goal, we might just think about it more often and impulsively than actual South Africans. Not a bad thing, in my book, since in most people’s cases, the analysis is critical engagement, part of the deal of our being here.
Last night I met a guy at a local café who had come into Cape Town to visit his cousin. His name was Masixolwe (click the “x”), and he was pretty impressed that I not only knew it was a Xhosa name, but that I could say it with little difficulty. (Score!) We ended having a really great conversation, something I find to be rare here. Half of the South Africans you meet here find out you’re American and shut down or dismiss you, and while it’s really disheartening, it’s also really informative. In speaking about American and South African politics and domestic issues and cities and school, I discovered that he’s a third-year student at Stellenbosch University. I felt skepticism flash across my face, and I immediately regretted it. It was impulsive, but Masixolwe didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he read my eyes and nodded his head. Stellenbosch is the heart of apartheid South Africa, and blacks suffer active discrimination to this day. Some classes are still taught in Afrikaans, even if students don’t know the language. Masixolwe, who’s studying engineering, told me how he’s forced to show his ID card by professors who don’t trust that he’s a student, how he’s continuously passed over in favor of white customers as he tries to buy his morning muffin. The worst thing is that there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it, no one he can turn to. The whole of Stellenbosch is against him. He has a right to be there, but he apparently doesn’t have the right to be taken seriously. It hurt so much to hear his story, because as much as the United States has alienated itself in some ways in its “freedom” rhetoric, that would never, ever be acceptable at home. Masixolwe was surprised when I told him that while that may happen, he’d have a lot more agency to do something about it. He just shrugged his shoulders and said that things would never change, but at least he has the opportunity to work hard and make something of himself for himself, not for his country. I wished that I had more wise words or something to offer him, and I almost felt embarrassed for having the privileges and opportunities and real liberties that I do. Masixolwe smiled, however, and told me that I was the first American he’d talked to who he’d actually felt comfortable talking to, that he normally feels alienated. The conversation, he said, had made his week. And in all truth, it made mine, too. Despite the horror of social realities here, despite the constant heartbreak I feel and the intellectual, psychological struggle of being here, the potential to be open and engage in a dialogue is the first step, a beautiful, if occasional, opportunity that makes it all worthwhile.
Hleka,
Christina
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