The Keeper of the Kumm

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. 
There is no time for despair, 

no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. 
We speak, we write, we do language. 
That is how civilisations heal. 
Toni Morrison.

Sylvia Vollenhoven has been hard at work helping us to heal. I saw her plays My Word, Redesigning Buckingham Palace and Cold Case at the Baxter a while ago. The former went on to London’s West End, garnering four stars from The Times of London.  

I was excited to see The Keeper of the Kumm, which had played to critical claim at the 2016 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. The Keeper of the Kumm is a multi-media project comprising the play (a dance drama), a novel and a documentary film. Kumm is a story told in the extinct /Xam language which is represented on our coat of arms*.

The play, starring Quanita Adams, Elton Landrew and Dawn Langdown, with original music by Hilton Schilder,  tells the story of Betjie Petersen, a hardened apartheid-era journalist who grapples with her identity. She reluctantly responds to a calling from her ancestor, //Kabbo, a 19th century rain-maker who went on a quest to the Cape to find people who would record the stories of his people.

The deeply autobiographical story crosses boundaries of time and place, and delves into religion, mental illness, tradition and the spiritual. Betjie finds healing for herself when she accepts her calling. 

In one scene which resonated with me, //Kabbo urges her to write the stories of the “prison of Colouredness”. Sylvia’s calling will no doubt help many to find healing. I look forward to experiencing the other aspects of this project. 

For more on The Keeper of the Kumm:

http://www.thejournalist.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-Keeper-of-the-Kumm-Aug-2014.pdf

*South Africa's motto, written on the SA coat of arms is a /Xam phrase: !ke e: /xarra //ke, literally meaning: diverse people unite.  

Memories of a trip to Madiba's village

After flying to East London from Cape Town, we drove north along the N2 for three hours, through the Wild Coast, formerly the Transkei, a homeland during the apartheid years and the Xhosa heartland. It rained steadily, the heavy grey skies contrasting sharply with bright green foliage and ochre-coloured earth. To our right was a rugged coastline pock-marked with secluded beaches, to the left forests, mountains and rivers. The national road cut straight through the CBD of small towns. In Butterworth, pedestrians, hawkers, obnoxious taxis and speeding traffic clashed in the chaotic main road. It was two days before Christmas and queues of people snaked around corners, waiting to withdraw hard-earned cash. 

I was surprised by how undeveloped the area was. In his autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela speaks fondly of his childhood in Qunu – swimming in the river, stick-fighting with his friends, tending sheep and drinking milk straight from cows’ udders. I was sure not much had changed since then. Qunu, where the family took refuge after Mandela’s father was deposed as chief, is right next door to his birthplace, Mvezo. 

The number of potholes in the road seemed to be in direct proportion to how rural the surrounding countryside was. Cows grazed along the roadside while goats risked their lives, and ours, by running across the tarmac with little regard for traffic. Our driver was forced to slow down to negotiate the obstacle course, and pointed to scatterings of thatch-roofed mud huts, sprinkled on the slopes of hills. Small cultivated patches of soil produced the vegetables to be cooked in black pots hung over open fires. Women, their faces and bodies decorated with white clay, collected water in pots from the river and carried them home, balanced on turbaned heads.

 

A few rondavels with stable doors were strung out in a semi-circle and a number of white and brown cows were enclosed in a low-walled kraal. A fire was spluttering in a clearing where black three-legged pots stood next to a stack of wood protected from the rain with plastic. Mongrels, perhaps anticipating a feast, sniffed at the pots.

Old men, wearing gumboots, blue and orange overalls and battered felt hats, were sitting on the wall of the kraal. 

As we traversed the treacherous terrain, we imagined what a difficult journey it must’ve been for Madiba from herd-boy to president. Little wonder he advocated education as the single most powerful weapon to change the world. The site for the planned Nelson Mandela School of Science and Technology, sponsored by Siemens, had been marked out. It struck me as almost more important a landmark than the small open-air museum nearby. It would serve many future generations of leaders. 

[The Nelson Mandela School of Science and Technology opened in July 2014]

You may also like Tea with Madiba in this blog and Thank you, Madiba, and Happy Birthday

Discovering Stories of Slavery

I finished reading Andre Brink’s Philida a while ago and it’s taken a long time to process the violence of the relationship between slave and master in the Cape during the 19^th century. I remember hearing that the slaves in South Africa never had it has bad as their counterparts in America.  Of course, I knew that this was propaganda along with other things we were told about the benign nature of our history. However reading the details of rape, whipping, impaling on top of the humiliation of being sold/auctioned, objectification, and the cruelty the slaves were subjected to, was nothing short of distressing.

Brink was inspired by the story of a relative who had owned the farm, Zandvliet, which is now Solms-Delta*.  Francois Brink had fathered four children with his father’s slave, Philida. He had promised that he would marry Philida but the farm is in trouble and his father orders him to marry a white woman from an important family in Cape Town. It wouldn’t do to have reminders of his former transgressions. So Philida is sold and separated from Ouma Nella, the only mother she has known.

The story unfolds in 1830s just before emancipation. Brink, the writer, skilfully juggles with religion, the tensions between the English and Dutch, and relationship between the landowners and the slaves. There were places in the book, though, where I wasn’t sure that a woman would say something quite in the voice that he uses.

There’s a poignant scene in the book which has stuck with me. Slaves were not allowed to wear shoes and one of the slaves on Philida’s new farm secretly makes a pair for each of them so that they can celebrate the emancipation with shoes. And celebrate they do, “…running up and down the street…singing and dancing and kicking up the dust...from now on everything will be different.” Of course they weren’t really free as they were forced to spend a further four years serving an “apprenticeship” on the farm.

Andre Brink was the first Afrikaans writer to have a book banned by the South African government during the apartheid era. He challenged the policies of the Nationalist Party through his writing in books such as A Dry White Season and A Chain of Voices. He died almost a year ago today, aged 79. Philida was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2012.

Philida reflects near the end of the book that “Ouma Nella’s stories… are all that remain now. Perhaps, when the end comes, they are all that can go on living.”

*When Mark Solms bought the farm in 2002, he set about uncovering its history, revealing not only the foundations of the first house built there, but also the remnants of a Stone Age site dating back about 5 000 years ago, and the story of Philida. A museum has been established to preserve the history of the farm as well as the musical heritage of the Cape. 

Orpheus in Africa

South Africa’s rich legacy of music can be traced back to the 17th century when the indigenous Khoi people first played European folk songs on a ramkie, the guitar-like Malay instrument, and fashioned their dances on those of the Dutch. Country estates had orchestras made up of slaves. In fact, music was a highly valued skill which could ensure a higher price for a slave. The Malays, who were brought to the Cape from the East Indies by the Dutch, blended their music with Dutch colonial ballads. Coloured labourers brought to work on the diamond mines in Kimberley combined their own music styles with that of Africans who they came into contact with. 

The Lutheran missions and the Salvation Army contributed to the development of African choral traditions, the most famous example of this heritage being Enoch Sontonga’s Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika which came to symbolise the struggle for African unity and liberation in SA. The fact that the missionaries offered free musical education was a major attraction. 

Another influence on local music was minstrelsy, which took hold after McAdoo’s American Jubilee Singers toured SA at the end of the 19th century. Their influence can still be seen in Cape Town’s annual coon carnival. But it was jazz that would influence and shape most black music, from mbaqanga, marabi (shebeen music) to the penny whistle or kwela craze.  Rather than simply copying American jazz, Ian Smith (musician and director of the Delft Big Band) believes that the Cape Town sound evolved from the minstrels, the slaves, and the Malay choirs. [extract from paper on music as resistance]

In his book In Township Tonight! David B, Coplan, paid tribute to the musicians and composers who contributed to the cultural and spiritual quality of black life during apartheid, giving expression to the their lives under apartheid. His book explores the history of music in SA from indigenous traditions, slave orchestras, gumboot dancers and minstrels to the birth of jazz. 

I missed it earlier this year, but David Kramer's Orpheus in Africa returns to the Fugard Theatre on 22 September. It tells the little-known story of Orpheus McAdoo, who toured South Africa in the late 19th century with his Jubilee Singers. It runs until 31 October but the first season was sold out so book early.

Cold Case: Revisiting our History

The stage is set to tell the story of  Dulcie September 

One of the motivations for me going back to university was to equip myself with the skills to tell the stories of growing up in District Six and on the Cape Flats. Not only my stories, but the stories of many who cannot tell their own. We’re a deeply divided society, a country still trying to recover from an oppressive past. We cannot sweep it all under the carpet and expect to move on. There will always be a bump there to trip us up, to nag at us to pull it straight.

People need to be acknowledged. Maybe nothing will undo the hurt but at least it’s not being ignored, we’re not being told to get over it and move on. We need to listen to each other with respect, be slow to judge. We need to know that someone saw our pain and understands; only then can we move forward.

I am encouraged by the two shows I saw recently at the Baxter Theatre – Cold Case: Revisiting Dulcie September, which premiered at the National Arts Festival in 2014 and My Word! Redesigning Buckingham Palace.

Buckingham Palace: District Six is, of course, the name of the novel by teacher and author Richard Rive, published in 1986. The tragedy of forced removals in District Six has been well-recorded. Less well-known is the story of anti-apartheid activist and ANC representative, Dulcie September who was assassinated in Paris in 1988.

The Baxter Theatre’s intimate Golden Arrow Studio provided the perfect backdrop to the personal stories of a childhood with an abusive father, a budding activist and a committed freedom fighter. Denise Newman is an accomplished story-teller who moved many members of the audience to tears, made us laugh at reminiscences of growing up in places like Athlone (where September was from). She held our attention for more than an hour, all eyes riveted on her one-person show … surrounded by the cardboard boxes which represent the cold case of what remains of the woman. 27 years later her killer has not been found. Theories abound, the mystery remains unsolved…

The biased history which we were forced to learn during apartheid needs to be balanced by stories such as these, giving value to our own experiences. The tens of thousands of people who attended her funeral, the street, square and boulevard named after her in Paris, make us proud of our struggle.

When I met Newman afterwards I couldn’t help enveloping her in a hug, I felt that I knew her, or at least the woman she had brought to life on the small stage. The run at the Baxter ended last night but look out for a couple of shows in August at the Artscape Theatre, to celebrate Woman’s Day.

Cold Case has won the Standard Bank Ovation Award and the Adelaide Tambo Award for Celebrating Human Rights through the Arts.

http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/richard-rive

http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/dulcie-evonne-september

The Slave Route Challenge

The Slave Lodge built in 1679 to house slaves owned by
the Dutch East India Company

With all the walking I did in the last year, I could have been in Johannesburg. However, I do think that beating the pavements around the neighborhood is what kept me sane and doing longer distances did come with a small sense of achievement. When Penny, my walking mate, posted the advert below on our WhatsApp group, it was the words 'Slave Route' which were most appealing though. And there was a 10km route.

"But it's Mothers' Day," was one response from the group. What better way to spend the morning, doing something we enjoyed and the proceeds were going to Red Cross Hospital? So we signed up, not put off by comments like, "That's a tough one!" I did wonder what we were letting ourselves in for when I heard about "Koeksister Hill". And no snide comments from those of you who have run the WHOLE Two Oceans nine times! The race was fun, the weather perfect, the marshalls the friendliest I have encountered and the koeksisters on top of  the hill the best I have ever eaten (perhaps all the more so for the steepness of the hill!). 

       

            Waiting for the start in
          Darling Street

The hill 

 

Spectators along the way

The route took in familiar landmarks like The Company Gardens, District Six and The Castle of Good Hope to finish on the Grand Parade. Perhaps less well-known was the Slave Monument on Church Square, outside Die Groote Kerk and across the road from the Slave Lodge. 

Granite blocks on Church Square
bear names of slaves 

The Slave Tree once stood here

The race is an innovative way to introduce participants to the legacy of slavery in our city. Participants also received free entry to the District Six Museum and the Castle. Millions of South Africans are descended from slaves brought here by the Dutch from the east coast of Africa, India, Indonesia and other Indian Ocean islands in the 17th Century. These slaves and their descendants built our city and played a major role in shaping the identity of Cape Town. Because of apartheid, we were  taught to view this history through a lens of shame. It's time to reclaim our heritage with pride. 

Some further reading: 

Eyes of the Sky and The Slave Book both by Rayda Jacobs

Khalil's Journey by Ashraf Kagee

Echoes of Slavery by Jackie Loos

You may also enjoy: Walking through History: Celebrating our Heritage 

It's a small world, after all

I found myself thousands of kilometres from  Cape Town having a conversation with a Swedish woman in traditional Midsummer dress, and the UAE ambassador to Sweden, about Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie’s book, Half of a Yellow Sun, which we had all read and enjoyed.

My son and I have spent four days in a small town in Sweden attending the Tallberg Forum. Tallberg is situated on the edge of Lake Siljan, a three-and-a-half-hour train ride to the north of Stockholm.  It has 230-240 permanent residents and eight hotels, all of which started out as farmhouses. The green hills surrounding the water, and long days of sunshine far from the bustle of the city, are conducive to interaction, reflection and absorption.

Every year since 1981 the Forum has been convened around the theme “How on earth can we live together?” It was established to provide a platform for free and open exchange of ideas and experiences. Participants come from all walks of life, from over 70 different countries. The people who attend are committed to finding solutions to improve the state of the world and are involved in businesses or NGOs which support that commitment. 

This year the focus was on globalization and how it relates to education, technology, culture, religion, race and identity. Huge problems exist globally around issues of the environment, education, health and human rights. I was struck by how South Africa is a microcosm of the concerns around the world.  

Our society is still so deeply divided and we are suspicious of those from whom we have been separated by apartheid. Before we can interact with the rest of the world, we need to learn to interact with the people who we live side by side with. We need to take time to get to know our neighbours, the people we go to school or university with, and the people we work with. We need to create an environment that invites sharing; a sense of community on a local and national level before we can truly be part of and participate on a global platform. Stereotypes and prejudices exist because we don’t take the trouble to move out of our comfort zones to get to know each other.

There’s hard work still to be done, necessary if we want to move forward. While we may not all agree on the issues, it is important to start talking. We may find that we are not all that different after all.

My South Africa

A friend reminded me about this piece by Professor Jonathan Jansen in response to my last blog.  

Professor Jonathan Jansen

My South Africa is the working-class man who called from the airport to return my wallet without a cent missing. It is the white woman who put all three of her domestic worker's children through the same school that her own child attended. It is the politician in one of our rural provinces, Mpumalanga, who returned his salary to the government as a statement that standing with the poor had to be more than just a few words. It is the teacher who worked after school hours every day during the public sector strike to ensure her children did not miss out on learning. 

My South Africa is the first-year university student in Bloemfontein who took all the gifts she received for her birthday and donated them - with the permission of the givers - to a home for children in an Aids village. It is the people hurt by racist acts who find it in their hearts to publicly forgive the perpetrators. It is the group of farmers in Paarl who started a top school for the children of farm workers to ensure they got the best education possible while their parents toiled in the vineyards. It is the farmer's wife in Viljoenskroon who created an education and training centre for the wives of farm labourers so that they could gain the advanced skills required to operate accredited early-learning centers for their own and other children. 

My South Africa is that little white boy at a decent school in the Eastern Cape who decided to teach the black boys in the community to play cricket, and to fit them all out with the togs required to play the gentleman's game. It is the two black street children in Durban, caught on camera, who put their spare change in the condensed milk tin of a white beggar. It is the Johannesburg pastor who opened up his church as a place of shelter for illegal immigrants. It is the Afrikaner woman from Boksburg who nailed the white guy who shot and killed one of South Africa's greatest freedom fighters outside his home. 

My South Africa is the man who went to prison for 27 years and came out embracing his captors, thereby releasing them from their impending misery. It is the activist priest who dived into a crowd of angry people to rescue a woman from a sure necklacing. It is the former police chief who fell to his knees to wash the feet of Mamelodi women whose sons disappeared on his watch; it is the women who forgave him in his act of contrition. It is the Cape Town university psychologist who interviewed the 'Prime Evil' in Pretoria Centre and came away with emotional attachment, even empathy, for the human being who did such terrible things under apartheid. 

My South Africa is the quiet, dignified, determined township mother from Langa who straightened her back during the years of oppression and decided that her struggle was to raise decent children, insist that they learn, and ensure that they not succumb to bitterness or defeat in the face of overwhelming odds. It is the two young girls who walked 20kms to school everyday, even through their matric years, and passed well enough to be accepted into university studies. It is the student who takes on three jobs, during the evenings and on weekends, to find ways of paying for his university studies. 

My South Africa is the teenager in a wheelchair who works in townships serving the poor. It is the pastor of a Kenilworth church whose parishioners were slaughtered, who visits the killers and asks them for forgiveness because he was a beneficiary of apartheid. It is the politician who resigns on conscientious grounds, giving up status and salary because of an objection in principle to a social policy of her political party. It is the young lawman who decides to dedicate his life to representing those who cannot afford to pay for legal services. 

My South Africa is not the angry, corrupt, violent country those deeds fill the front pages of newspapers and the lead-in items on the seven-o'-clock news. It is the South Africa often unseen, yet powered by the remarkable lives of ordinary people. It is the citizens who keep the country together through millions of acts of daily kindness. 

I copied the article and photograph from the South Africa The Good News website.

Professor Jonathan Jansen is the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State.

Tea with Madiba

“Let the beautiful ladies step forward,” he says as we quietly enter the room behind my husband. It breaks the ice a little. I had been so looking forward to this but too scared to jinx it by getting excited or even telling too many people. Right up to the last minute I had thought it was not going to happen. What if he wasn’t feeling well? One hears so many different stories. But yes, we were being ushered in to see Madiba, and my daughter and I were the beautiful ladies he was talking about.

There he was, the most famous grandpa in the world. He was having a good day and was happy to receive visitors. He was sitting up with a blanket around his knees, catching up with the newspapers. (Was that the Afrikaans newspaper I spied on his lap?)

We had travelled through green countryside under rainy skies past villages with vegetable patches and goats and sheep outside their little thatched huts. It was like we were travelling back in time. We had passed through busy towns like Butterworth, where people snaked around the corner waiting to withdraw their hard-earned money from the cash machines for Christmas. And then for the best Christmas present ever...tea with Madiba.

What a journey from Mvezo/Qunu to Johannesburg, to Robben Island and the world, from herd boy to President.  And now back in Qunu. Last year after being very sick he decided that it was time to go home. Home is Qunu, the village in the Eastern Cape where he grew up, right next door to Mvezo the very rural village where he was born. It’s a peaceful place, and after almost 93 years, he deserves it.

I was a little sad to see him so “old”. In my mind he is eternal, like a shining beacon to all of us, and to the world. But right next door is a little baby who long after Madiba is gone will be chief of the Thembu. When Madiba plays with him as he does every day he must think of the future and delight in the possibilities.

Everyone wants to know what it was like, what he said – but it was more about just being there. It was like sitting down with our grandpa who was worried about why it was taking so long for us to be served our tea and whether the table was close enough to my husband, and smiling to himself when he saw how much my son had grown since the last time he had seen him. And he is still very charming...

Lavender, Travel Stamps and a Potjie: Part 3

Potjies on a fire in a village in the Eastern Cape 

Potjies are traditional cast-iron 3-legged pots which have been used to cook over a fire for centuries in South Africa. Usually a stew is made with whatever meat is available and vegetables and spices are added. Of attraction to me, is the fact that after initial preparation, it requires little looking after and you can socialize while it cooks for hours, stewing and blending all the different tastes. I like that you can throw a little bit of everything in and out comes something wonderfully harmonious. 

When I was deciding on the blog-header, the idea of a cultural melting pot to represent South Africa, came up. I thought it was quite appropriate to represent what I wanted to blog about and could also be a metaphor for my views on spirituality and religion, and indeed on life. 

When my son completed junior school at the end of last year, one of the traditions that he was involved in, was a Potjiekos Competition. There was great excitement as they were placed into groups and discussed recipes. He is a meat-and-potatoes man in the great South African tradition, of course, and we adapted his favourite meal - the Cape Malay tomato bredie. He was delighted that his team came in at third place. Here's the recipe that my mother used when we were growing up:

Tomato Bredie
Ingredients:
1 kg Mutton pieces (knuckles are great)
2 large onions
1 kg ripe red tomatoes (use canned if you have to)
1 tin of tomato paste
4-6 medium potatoes
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons of sugar
salt to taste

Braise the onions until golden brown.
Add the meat and braise until soft.
Add tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic and cook for 15 minutes.
Add the potatoes and cook until soft.
Add the sugar to balance the tartness of the tomatoes.
Season to taste.

Best served with white rice.

(A vegetarian potjie is of course perfectly possible, too.)

For more on Potjiekos click here

So, these three blogs on potjiekos, lavender and travel, more or less explain the design of my blog-header, and a little about me. Hope you stick around for more.

For the two previous blogs, see here:
Lavender, Travel Stamps and a Potjie: Part 2
Lavender, Travel Stamps and a Potjie: Part 1