“Those who always speak in a roundabout manner and are not straightforward in their conversation are suspected of witchcraft.” – E. E. Evans-Pritchard

Sometimes I feel surrounded by witches. So it goes life.

Last week was phenomenally busy. And not in a good way. We had a final for John’s course on Thursday from 9-12, then got straight on busses to go on a 3 day, 2 night field trip to a very small town called Clanwilliam, famed for its numerous rock art sites. I felt like my brain had been taken over by other peoples’ thoughts. Unfortunately, as Jackie can attest, I was in quite a mood – I even improvised an “I hate Clanwilliam” song before loading the busses.

The bus ride was more than 3 hours, so I had a lot of time to cool off (but only figuratively – Clanwilliam is, as Jean says, “an extreme of the earth” – 40+ degrees Celsius while we were there). When we arrived in Clanwilliam, we were shown to our “dormitory style” sleeping quarters, a room with 15 bunk beds for the girls, and an equal sized room next door for the 9 boys. The feminine energy was roaring. We then got a short introduction to the Living Landscape Project, the environmental organization that was hosting us for the weekend.

(C)lan(w)illiam

On our drive to the first rock art site!

The sun setting at the first rock art site.

That evening we drove to our first rock art site, which is owned by the University of Cape Town. Our Living Landscape guides, Ciaca and David, told us about the history of San rock art and its particular contemporary significance; similar to !Khwa ttu, awareness of San rock art is giving San culture a voice that was, for some time, lost within the grips of colonialism and total exploitation. The site was absolutely gorgeous. We took what David Bunn calls “the most romantic swim of our lives” under the sunset, then walked a short distance to see rock art that was thousands of years old, lit only by stars and torches.

Ciaca, on the left, giving us an introduction to San rock art.

"The most romantic swim of our lives."

The rock art site.

On our way to the site, we passed “squatters” as they’re called; people living on the outskirts (sometimes referred to as “the bush") of Clanwilliam proper, on only what they are able to collect from their surroundings. Knowing that UCT owns this land, I asked Jean about the legalities surrounding the squatters. She said that while technically it is private property, UCT allows them to stay because they really have nowhere else to go but further into the bush – where conditions are even harsher, and work is even harder to come by. If any of you have ever seen the Israeli film 9 Star Hotel (a documentary of Palestinian laborers who daringly cross the border every day to find illegal construction work), their small settlements looked almost identical.

Clanwilliam is a town filled with contradictions. The town is literally still segregated – blacks and coloreds (colored is the term for people who are not black and not white, which includes Indians…I haven’t quite gotten used to using it yet) on one side of the road, whites on the other. While legally the schools of course cannot still be segregated, the formerly white Afrikaaner school became private and charges an obscene tuition in order to keep non-whites out. The racial, linguistic, social, and political divisions are more pronounced than anywhere else I have ever seen in my life.



Friday morning, we got up at 6am and drove to two more rock art sites that were about an hour away. The second one was really mindblowing – it was in a giant cave, about a 20 minute walk from the main road where we parked.

How cool is that!

Allen standing in the cave. How amazing!

The descent.

Back at Living Landscape, trying desperately to escape the heat.

That afternoon, we were split up into 6 groups of 4 to go visit various institutions in town in order to get a real grasp of the divisions, the contradictions, and perspectives of the people of Clanwilliam. I went to Bosasa, a Youth Development Centre (also called a rehab center) for boys under 18 who are awaiting trial. Bosasa is privately funded, but admission requires a court referral. It houses 64 boys, for periods of days to years, for crimes as serious as rape and murder – but honestly, you would never know it. The boys were calm, respectful, and engaged, and I really think that can be credited to the attitudes of the Bosasa staff. They are, above all, a “place of safety” – one that treats each child as if they were innocent, whether or not the legal system eventually finds them guilty. Pumla, a wonderfully sweet woman who showed us around and answered our questions, kept saying that each boy “was only a child.” One would assume it takes a lot of convincing to see a rapist or a murderer as “just a child,” but at Bosasa it does not. Pumla also said that at some similar institutions, boys’ activities are strictly separated by age – 10-14 year olds and 15-18 year olds, for example – because the older boys tend to bully the younger ones. But not here, she explained: the older boys often took on leadership roles, looking after the younger, or more troubled, ones. Touring Bosasa had a really powerful impact on me, and I’m sorry I couldn’t find an opportunity to take pictures while I was there.

[Based on my experience at Bosasa, I have decided to write a final research paper for Jean’s course on the rise of rehabilitation centers of this sort after the death penalty was made illegal – I believe there is an important connection here, related to the legal and social acknowledgement of a capacity for human reform (one that surged after the fall of apartheid). I hope to visit similar institutions in Cape Town in the next week or so.]

We ended our day at the Clanwilliam dam, a quiet public beach in the rich part of town where many people who water ski have second (or 3rd and 4th) homes. 

Clanwilliam dam.

After we returned from Clanwilliam, I took the most intense shower of my life and relaxed for a few hours. Saturday night we went to Long Street for some drinks, and Sunday a group of us went back to Kirstenbosch to see an Afrikaans band called Fokofpolisiekar (yes, that translates to exactly what it sounds like). The music was nice and the venue, of course, incredibly beautiful and relaxing. And Gillian came! She is studying at UCT for the semester. We had a mini-MCS reunion - in South Africa, of all places. How fitting.

This picture is nothing novel, but I thought I'd make you all jealous...again

MCS '03 - throwbaaack!

Yesterday I visited the District 6 museum, which originally started out as a sort of memory project to compile stories about those who were displaced when District 6 was declared a whites-only area in the 1960s. This forced thousands of black and colored people into townships, and their homes were bulldozed en masse to make room for white development. Tours of the museum are given by previously displaced people – our tour guide was named Noor, a 66-year old Muslim Indian-Scottish man whose house was destroyed after 4 generations of his family had lived there. He really emphasized that despite the atrocities of apartheid, he had no ill feelings towards white South Africans. The government oppressed the majority of the population for decades, but he continued to say “I do not hate them, I forgive them.” That sentiment is prevalent in South Africa, and I asked if he thought that Nelson Mandela (who very much shares this view) was instrumental in influencing this attitude. He said he certainly thought so. Yet he did also add, “I really do not like any kind of government,” which I thought was very interesting.

Noor, our tour guide, telling us about being displaced and his life under apartheid.

Just finished my first week of Jean’s course. She is much more approachable than I expected, and lectures in a completely different (but equally brilliant) way from John. She is also absolutely hysterical. I am very lucky to be here.

Miss you all!

The rules cannot determine the outcome, because they themselves are the subject of debate.

On Friday we had our first of many field trips, to a San village (which you may know as part of the Khoi/San, not to be confused with the misrepresented Khoisan) called !Khwa ttu. The “!” is a palatal click: “tongue is pressed against the upper palate and released sharply downwards, something like when a cork is pulled from a bottle.” I can already sense many of you sitting at your computers trying this out. Rest assured, this is not a “try and lick your elbow” trick – I am actually starting to feel pretty comfortable pronouncing some of the clicks. My mentor here is named Xolani; the X is called a lateral click, which is the “sound produced at the side of the tongue when the tongue is pressed against the palatal, something like urging a horse.” When you say it fast, the lateral click sounds like the letter K pronounced from the side of your mouth – so many just call him Kolani, or X.

!Khwa ttu is a tourist education center, where native San guides walk groups of foreigners through a series of linguistic and cultural demonstrations about past and present San practices. For the life of me I could not understand why our program wanted to take us somewhere so blatantly tourist. It sounded really inauthentic, aimed at people who wanted a quick snapshot of the “natural state of Africa.” !Khwa ttu’s justification, however, I found quite convincing: historically, Europeans exploited the San through tourism, so instead of doing away with tourism altogether (as it is now a part of their legacy) they took their history back into their own hands. Their goal is less monetary profit – although that is certainly part of it – and more social and historical reproduction, on their own terms. A new friend also reminded me that this country has a 40% unemployment rate, and any job is a job worth having (that includes "domestics" as they call them). So please, if you are ever in South Africa, go visit them! Or check them out online, at http://www.khwattu.org/.  I really did have a wonderful time.

Jean, John, and David preparing to get on the tractor tour of the San grounds.

A demonstration of San jewelry, shoe, and clothing making.

San art, created in 2005 by a guide - "inspired by his ancestors."

Adrian trying on a San covering - and resisting the paparazzi.

An indoor exhibit.

Once I decided I supported their mission, I went a little crazy at the gift shop. All for a good cause, right? They also had a restaurant where we had a spectacular lunch – I had a butternut squash and caramelized onion tart (Emily, are you secretly living at !Khwa ttu?). Altogether, it was a really interesting and relaxing day, and I’m very glad to have gone.

Friday night and Saturday were very relaxing. We went out for a few drinks on Long Street, then literally sat by the pool all day and night on Saturday. It was glorious.

So you all remember what I look like...(finally, Panchali!)

Dancing at Zula!

Playing bridge by the pool, like the little old ladies that we are.

Sunday we decided to explore the beach at Camps Bay, which is only about a 15 minute cab ride from where we live. Round trip, it cost about 3 dollars per person, and I got all of my reading for today done. On the beach. In the sun. I will be spending many afternoons at Camps Bay.

Class has been going extremely well. John’s course is over this Thursday, though, which I’m quite sad about – he is a phenomenal lecturer. I expect no less from Jean or David Bunn, but I am a little nervous for what is ahead. Jean is a firecracker.

I can’t believe I’ve been here two weeks! I feel completely settled, and I am starting to get very comfortable traveling around the city – but it’s going too fast. I know I can’t ever get this experience back (although that hasn’t stopped me from thinking of all the ways I could trick the study abroad office into letting me come back next year…) and I don’t want to miss out on anything. But I do miss you all!

“Politics is summoned into effect when order is ruptured.” – John Comaroff

But more importantly, how do acephalous (literally, “without a head”) systems achieve order in the first place?

Our program is very small. Fifteen girls, nine boys, and a handful of mentors and academic advisors. I must admit that it at times feel painfully intimate – we eat together, study together, go out together, read together. On the one hand, I’ve gotten to know a really interesting group of people very quickly, but on the other we have almost immediately gotten past the honeymoon period of new friendships.

I seem to be frustrated with how politically correct some people on this program feel they need to be. One could argue that, considering where we are and what we’re studying, maybe it is best to watch what we say (particularly in discussing race relations) – but I was never very good at that. In fact, South Africa is known for how public its political, social, and cultural discourse is (and must be) in the post-Apartheid era. While the dissolution of Apartheid was a process (“a becoming, not an isolated event” as John Comaroff might say) the sociopolitical change that took place in 1994 was still abrupt and shocking…and it is not ignored. We are here to partake in this discourse, and conversation should be raunchy, provocative – otherwise, how will we get to the meat of the issues that surround us every day?

On the whole, though, I really have enjoyed meeting these people (somehow, not many of us ever crossed paths in Chicago) and beginning to explore with them. Friday night was our first experience going out on the town, and we went out pretty hard. We walked up and down Long Street, and popped in and out of a bunch of clubs and bars. Long Street is mostly filled with two story places with balconies on the second floor overlooking the street, so even when you’re outside it feels like one big party. I had a blast, and felt a lot safer than I expected to.

Duncan, Jackie, and Sam at a cheap bar in a hostel. R5 shots!

Showing off our transformer stamps from Fiction.

Sunday, almost our entire group went to see Freshly Ground (an Afropop band with an amazing singer, who is hugely popular here) at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. I want to go back every weekend. The venue is on a hill, engulfed by mountains and clouds – the most spectacular, mesmerizing view I have ever seen in my life. We all brought picnics and stretched out on the grass, breathed in the cool Cape Town breeze and swayed to songs sung in Lord knows how many languages. It was a pretty magical experience.

Kayla, Rebecca, Divya, Claire, Alina, NJ, Vriti

This morning started our second week of class (I can’t believe I’ve already been here a week!) and on my usual morning walk down the hill, I realized that the mountains were being swallowed whole by clouds descending at a rapid rate. I could have watched for hours and hours and hours.

What the mountain usually looks like.

The mountain today!

During our class break, absorbing every minute of the genius that is John Comaroff.

We have our first midterm tomorrow (it is being given out after class and due “before dinner on Wednesday” – I’m starting to feel like I live in a hyper academic commune) so I must go read, in the glorious sun. Woe is me! But finally, here are some pictures of our beautiful bedroom:

In its (her) truest form.