The Southern Tip

I always love the feeling of returning home after time away. As refreshing, rejuvenating and invigorating as adventures are, the comfort of the return to familiarity is always so lovely, especially after a long and tiring three day journey home. Even the lack of electricity for twenty four hours (meaning delicious ice-cold showers and cooking in the dark) had a welcome familiarity to it, greeting me yesterday when I arrived back in Tanzania after my travels to the farthest southern tip of the continent.

South Africa was an adventure. An eclectic, expansive and inspiring adventure, filled with contrasts, contradictions and revelations. Rather than write a long, laborious extract about the trip, here’s a brief run-down of the action:

Train rides

The train ride was once again a combination of hilarious cabin-pals, lush views, noisy night’s sleeps and constant delays (though not as bad as last year’s nine-hour classic). This time, the train broke down after the first two hours on the way down to Cape Town:

but the three hours on the platform in some random town were magically absorbed in time in the night, when the wannabe-rally-driving train driver drove us at full pelt; the train feeling as though it was about to come off the rails at one point, we were going so fast!

Views were expansive, varied and endlessly blue-skied; ranging from townships to vineyards, mountains to marshes.

My travel pals this year were amusing: on the way down I had two hilarious sisters in their early eighties, travelling to Cape Town for their other sister’s eighty fifth birthday. They refused to accept the fact that I didn’t speak Afrikaans, and just rambled on to me for hours, not seeming to mind my total lack of vocal responses.

The return journey was a little more interesting, with June, an interesting but somewhat racist pensioner –and Violet, a manic-depressive wannabe-thief (caught her trying to half-inch June’s handbag in the middle of the night!) Fun times in the cabin!

 Melville

I had a few days in Johannesburg on the way down to Cape Town, and stayed in a cool area called Melville. Home to writers, artists, musicians and the like, it was a very chilled out, easy area to stay, with the cutest little cabin for my bedroom – from bed to pool in just two easy moves!

I spent a day wandering around the Melville Koppies; a nature reserve and a Johannesburg  City Heritage sight in the local area.

The geology of the place apparently goes back over three billion years whilst early stone-age man camped in the grounds over 500,000 years ago.

I’m told many people use the grounds for religious worship as it’s got a sacred place in the heart of the local communities. The indigenous vegetation lends to a unique natural reserve and it was a beautiful few hours wandering above the city in the quiet solace of the landscape.

Bus tour

I was a proper tourist during one of my days in Jo’burg and took the red sightseeing bus around town.

 It was a great way to get a good overview of the city, taking in sights such as:

Gandhi Square

The Carlton Centre (the tallest building in Africa)

The World of Beer (love it!)

The Apartheid Museum

Braamfontein and the trendy university district

Constitution Hill

I “hopped off” at a few of the spots and spent time walking around some of the streets. Constitution Hill, the seat of the constitutional court of South Africa, was a former fort and then prison; housing many political prisoners over the years, including Mahatma Ghandhi and Nelson Mandela. It now burns the eternal Flame of Democracy; a flame first lit by Mandela in Qunu in 2011, marking the country’s continued commitment to democracy.

There is a really good energy in Jo’burg, it feels like a city bursting with life and possibilities and was a great place to spend a few days.

Cape Town

The journey down south was primarily to visit old friends Verena and Justin and to meet their new addition to the family, baby Noah.

Instantly falling in love with the little man, I had a great week catching up with good friends, enjoying the beauty of their home and surrounding area and indulging in endless cuddles with little Noah.

Living just a few metres from the beach meant that I got to spend time every day with my toes in the sand, managing in a few good swims in the somewhat icy Atlantic (a great way to wake up and / or to lose sensation in your limbs!)

The sunsets were endlessly gorgeous and I never tired of watching the day end so majestically over the ocean:

Trips out for breakfast (oh, how I have missed you, good tasting bread), afternoon tea,  walks at the Waterfront and drives to the winelands added to the relaxation of a week in Cape Town. A very happy few days indeed with V, J and little Noah.

District Six

I spent one morning exploring an area in Cape Town known as District Six. My attention to this part of the city was first aroused years ago through a poem written by South African poet Tatamkulu Afrika called ‘Nothing’s Changed’. It tells of the landscape of District Six – a former inner-city residential area whose 60,000 residents were forcibly removed from their homes and the area during 1970s apartheid era.  Having taught this poem to my students for several years, I was interested to visit an area so decimated through apartheid to learn more of its history.

In 2003, work began to rebuild the area and return houses to former inhabitants, an attempt to welcome back banished communities. This rejuvenation is something of a contradiction for many; the surrounding areas still very much white-man’s land (something that the poem echoes through its message).

NOTHING’S CHANGED

Small round hard stones click

under my heels,

seeding grasses thrust

bearded seeds

into trouser cuffs, cans,

trodden on, crunch

in tall, purple-flowering,

amiable weeds.

District six.

No board says it is:

but my feet know,

and my hands,

and the skin about my bones,

and the soft labouring of my lungs,

and the hot, white, inwards turning

anger of my eyes.

Brash with glass,

name flaring like a flag,

it squats

in the grass and weeds,

incipient Port Jackson trees:

new, up-market, haute cuisine,

guard at the gatepost,

whites only inn.

No sign says it is:

But we know where we belong.

I press my nose 

to the clear panes, 
know, before I see them,
 there will be crushed ice white glass, 
linen falls, the single rose. 

Down the road, working man's cafe
 sells bunny chows. 
Take it with you, 
eat it at a plastic table's top, 
wipe your fingers on your jeans, 
spit a little on the floor: it's in the bone. 

I back from the glass, boy again, 
leaving small mean O of small mean mouth. 
Hands burn for a stone, a bomb, 
to shiver down the glass. 

Nothing's changed.

I spent time walking around the area and visited the District Six Museum; an archive of stories, remnants and emotions of a time of violent change, talking with a former resident about her memories of the eviction and her troubled thoughts on her return to old lands.

The Divide

South Africa is a difficult place in many ways. When I first visited a few years ago, I found the noticeable atmosphere of difference very difficult to deal with, and it remained at the forefront of my mind this time around. Although apartheid officially ended, the sense of divide amongst people remains strong. In some ways it feels so noticeable, especially in Cape Town, because, as the landscape has changed and wealth has regenerated the area, the divide has become one of visual opposites. Very much a town of rich and poor, it is sadly now a town where the rich have one colour skin and the poor another. Coming from a country such as Tanzania, where wealth divide is not recognisable through race and where equality and harmony are such strong elements of life here, I struggled once again with the underlying animosity in the air.

With so many people living hidden behind big gates, with security guards, alarms, barbed wire and fences everywhere, there is no escaping the psyche of separation surrounding the landscape.

I met a young Tanzanian guy, James, one day on the beach in Cape Town, who spoke to me at length of his feelings of discomfort now he is living in South Africa. He told me he had never felt “skin conscious” growing up in Tanzania, he was simply Tanzanian. However, the moment he arrived in South Africa, he was suddenly “black” and feels he is daily judged for what he is from everyone around him. The consciousness of race that pervades the country is something I have thought about a great deal and I wonder whether there can ever be an erosion of race from people’s psyches within a land that has rebuilt itself upon the rubble of racism. This is something I will write more about in another blog anon.

Overall, it was a wonderful few weeks; an enlightening, relaxing, adventurous and enjoyable few weeks exploring some of the treasures lying in the south of this exquisite continent. And, after a good rest, I’m ready to get back to the words once more and start planning the next adventure.