18 Mar South Africa 2007
South Africa has a most perfect balance of beauty and danger, (to the extremes of both), coupled with an imbalance between wealth and poverty, where anti-apartheid is still new, so society continues to act it out in subtle ways. For example, late this afternoon I convinced my driver, a black South African, to take the 30-mile shorter route along the ocean route rather than the way he chose to drive, through traffic, and mall drag-strip USA-type roads. He was afraid, telling me how every so often the gangs stop motorists, and ‘I won’t tell you what they do to them.’ I asked him to look at the map and decide for himself, (which was the way I convinced him), so we went along the ocean route. All along the way I heard more stories of terrible things that happened on this beautiful road. The Police do not help people. Even the Police have security guards because Police stations are robbed of ammunition by gangs. The signs along the way had
bullet holes in them. I was coming from the Township along the ocean route was all I knew.
I had visited the driver’s family the day before, which is how I got ‘my driver’ in the first place. The house was like a prison, with two heavy metal doors and an electrical fence on the outside; it took my driver 15 minutes to enter his own house. His wife scolded him when he left and forgot to set the alarm. His neighbor has all the same precautions, but one night when he went home and opened his garage door, he was kidnapped for ransom by someone waiting in the bushes for his arrival to pounce on him, and he was never seen again.
Being January, none of my contacts at the University came through, as school was on vacation. How was I going to get inside the townships? I was there to meet artists, sent by my University where I teach. The townships are the only real Africa here. My driver refused to enter the township, so I went by myself. I was instantly converged upon, suddenly so white a person, with, “What are you doing here?” I looked at the person resolutely and said, “I am a painter. I am here to meet artists.” A long silence hung heavily, until I was told to wait, so there I stood just inside the entrance, (but alas, I was ‘in’ the the township), aware that people were gathering, staring. I waited 15 minutes, with wonder inside my body instead of fear, whereupon no less than 20 people came over to me and again I was asked by the same person, with the same intonation, “What are you doing here?” to which I said, “I am a painter. I am here to meet artists, to see the work being done, to exchange ideas. I want to meet painters.” His response: “You showed up. Come with us.” I was taken to studio after studio, as the crowd behind me grew proportionately. I was cooked for and treated with as much respect as I had for everyone I met. All I kept thinking about was color: everyone wore bright colors, the cardboard houses were painted brightly, as though color was spirit instead of money, the mosaic work was intensely colored, paintings were lavishly layered with thick paint, and I, having made a life of passionately loving color, was acutely aware of how color moves here unlike anywhere I have ever seen it move elsewhere.
The District Six Museum, an exhibit regarding the forced removal of all kinds of people, (blacks, “coloreds,’ mixed races, Jews, Muslims), exhibited how the people lived peacefully together just outside of Cape Town. Apartheid forced everybody out with bulldozers, and today the area is a mere field with only the Muslim Chuch left standing. The Museum sold me a book on the town before the government destroyed it, and I met the man who founded the Museum, as his family was removed as well. As well, I went to the Castle, which is now a Military Museum. The guard closed the door to the dungeon so we could experience the darkness, dampness, isolation and fear that prisoners endured for years, cramped together, for all of 10 seconds that I will never forget. On the second floor of the castle are studios for artists, a residency program. In a little room were four women from the townships sitting together making paintings out of beads. From the corridor I heard their exchanges in the form of laughter and song. When I entered, (taken by a social worker), they fell silent, but from then on we made friends and soon enough we were all exchanging laughter together. One of the women has a pure spirit and heart, like a child; a really calm, happy, proud, curious and humble spirit. Everything that came out of her felt like a deep dark ruby-red velvet cloak on my shoulders. . Her name, Neliswa, (from Guteletha), means ‘calm.’ (Not being a calm person myself, I got to study close-up what it must be like to be so). On a small counter was a black beaded necklace, and before I even knew it was her work, or if it was even for sale, I loved it, inquired about who made it, so she picked it up and gave it to me as she said, “I did, and it’s yours.” I insisted on paying her for it so she asked for $7. That money goes back into the township where she lives and can feed her family. I gave her $25. And she
protested, but I won the argument. Whenever I wear it, I feel her spirit.
There was constant brazen muggings on the trains. I myself had a near mugging on the train, but only because I became a target when my acent was perceived at the ticket counter as ‘a foreigner.’ . Since I have eyes behind my head, when a young man asked me for a rand , I had already felt him breathing right onto my neck as his friends surrounded me, in Kauk, (two towns north from my stop in Muizenberg). The attendant chased them away, but I had seen their quick split seconds of heads peeking around the corner; they jumped onto the train as soon as the train doors opened, w/o tickets, (because the attendant was not watchful enough. The only reason I got out of trouble is by jumping off the train at the very last second just as the doors closed, as they rode away more stunned than furious. Then, I had to wait for the next train, while I talked to the attendant, and this time, he heard me, almost too late. I saw what they were up to in their eyes, close up. Maybe an ancestor helped me this time. The trains, if you travel third class, are safer, as in 1st class there are unexpected robberies at the hands of impoverished people, even in the middle of the day, at knife point. Terrorized by the storiesI hired a bodyguard who was Congolese and very kind and good to me. He was a refugee from the Congo who had not seen his family for ten years. His country was run by a dictator who was housed in Morrocco until he recently died. “Papy,” as he was called by his four younger sisters, (which is probably why he is so gentle), was learning about Cape Town and wanted to become a tour guide; I ended up teaching him things I discovered about which he did not even know about Cape Town. He learned to grab my hand when we crossed the street because I continually looking to the left instead of to the right when crossing. Even as a dancer, my body did not learn this rule, and I can safely say that Papy
saved my life at least a dozen times.
I took Papy to Robben Island where he had never been. It was an extremely painful experience, to actually be in the cells, to feel what that time of apartheid imprisonment had been for those people who were incarcerated. . Prisoners, (lawyers, doctors, professional men, were torture done had to ‘earn’ a blanket to sty warm, as most did not, sleeping on concrete floors. Prisoners were forced to mine the lime in the rock, but they were smart, and got educated by Mandela in the cave, over 18 year’s period of time, discreetly. One way prisoners communicated was by pretending to play tennis; they would miss a play, which went over to the other side, when a message was inserted into the ball and bounced back, thus enabling communication
I traveled to the townships and squatter camps of Langa, “(Sun),” and Gugulethu, “(Pride).”Also, Nyanga, “(Moon).” I hired a driver whom I knew would give me the full stories without censorship for tourists. He realized right away who I was and held nothing back, as he had once been involved in the movement and got blacklisted, even beaten up. I was taken to a very small office in one of the townships with a torn, old rug and two tiny windows, one computer, and old posters on the walls, run by three women who make the needs of the people with whom they are in direct contact known. They are the Real Parliment, these same three. Each one had hope, looked worn, but wise. I was taken to the very sites where people, (children and women just walking by), were killed, one site where seven young men were shot in the backs of their heads. One white student, Amy Biehl, who was driving through the townships from school with other black
students, who was working ‘for the anti-aparthied cause,’ was stoned and then stabbed by four men who saw a white person and wanted revenge.They were prosecuted, but her Parents exonerated them because they, too, were ‘for the cause,’ and it is for the murderers to live with what they had done and teach others. This is a better solution than Suddan Hussein’s recent execution, leaving no room for evolution and just making perpertrators all the angrier.
The townships are separated by highways, barbed fences and/or concrete walls, to separate the races of blacks, coloreds, and Indians. Originally the townships housed black labor workers for Cape Town, but after apartheid ended in 1991, families who had been forced to live there remained, to be together as a community, and the towns are so vibrant!
The driver took me to a medicine man for the joint in my right hand which is immovable from what I call ‘stretching canvas arthritis.’ For whatever it is worth, I have to drink white onion juice laced with herbs, and breathe in a really wonderful smelling incense from a root, as well as chew on another type of root, first thing in the morning as I pray. An hour later, my hand still hurts. Very bright outside, when I walked inside to this ‘den,’ it was completely dark, with herbs, roots, bones, skins and amulets hanging everywhere. Only when my eyes adjusted did I realize there were about 10-12 men sitting against the wall. Utterly quiet, they watched me interact with the doctor, who later charged me 40 rand.
I was taken into the home of a woman aged 75, whose 6-yr. old child had been murdered. When I entered, she was sitting visiting with family. There were a lot of children around, but shoo’d away. By the time I left, everyone was smiling. Just outside the door were miles and miles of township poverty, imminent violence, (rape, thievery and stabbings), s ell as the finest break dancing I had ever seen. One dancer told me, “I used to be a bad person when I joined a gang but now I am in the dancing gang and realize.” That is all that he told me, and all I needed to hear from him.
This country makes the indigenous Indians’ plight look like a mere spat. The Slavery Museum upset me terribly; I had chilling emotion run through me and I could not take in any more. Back out in the street, the sun was so hot, so bright, as though I exited a cave and was caught in a time warp. There was not a person who walked by whose face I did not see. Most people broke into smiles as we passed. This place also makes NYC’s multi-culture look bland. It’s just ‘all out’ in the open here, whatever people are…..elderly Muslim women in long scarves covering heads and bodies in long wrapped cloths to the ground as they walk…
While in town, I went to a museum regarding the San people, the original inhabitants in South Africa.
Clouds sit on the mountains and hold them. The ocean rushes, it’s sound and layers of waves moving, moving… Each night I fall asleep my Congolese neighbors having an all-too-good time in the form of loud voices, loud music, but in the early morning I was awakened by one single man’s song, a prayer, so beautiful, as he shoveled cement, coupled with the ocean waves. Within minutes, there was the sound of laughter, the rhythm of the language, the night noises that had been so fearsome, (as the party always ended in violence), gone.
There are shark warnings but people from the townships who celebrate holidays by the ocean have a lot to drink and then test the seductive waters; they go way far out with diving boards. The distant ocean on the horizon is purple-blue, the closer ocean a deep, dark green-blue, with 100 layers of waves I memorized before I ever went inland.
The train was so clean, (not like NYC’s subways), the architecture so ‘old Dutch,’ the vegetation abundantly tropical. This is a beautiful place. I reminded myself that I was in Africa when the the ocean told me so, the rhythm of the language told me so, when the clouds sat heavily on the mountains the way that they did….like a tablecloth coating them.
On the way to yet another museum, in the middle of noisy Cape Town on a 105 degree hot and humid day, I received a call from my brother. What he said was, “It is the family consensus that you come home right away.” My most important University appointments were to come up the next week, but I heard myself say, “Im on it.” All the computers were down in Cape Town, so I went right to the airport the very next day and got myself a seat on a plane headed to New England, a 27 hour flight, (the longest nonstop flight in the world, I was told). . My Father was dying. I wove between tears and acceptance, back-and-forth, all the flight long, not able to push the plane to forward faster, praying that I would get to my Father on time, that he would wait for me. I did not even wait for my bags at the airport; I drove 2 hours north right to my Father’s bedside. As I walked into his room, he greeted me with, “You came home.” His voice was raspy, his body transforming fast right before my eyes. I laid down next to him and held him. He was still being my Father, telling me what he expected of me, but I could not decipher all the words. I told him it was time for him to fly out of his body, and he said, “That is good talk,’ and that is what he did.