Music

Table Mountain & District 6

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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The geographical configuration of the city of Cape Town at the foot of Table Mountain is as beautiful as everyone has said it is. We took the cable car to the top of the mountain on a clear beautiful day. We rented a car and took a ride down to the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town isn’t actually on the tip of the Cape) about 20 miles down the peninsula where Bob hiked up to the lighthouse to get a good view of the Atlantic on one side and the Indian Ocean on the other.

Music
The epic documentary by American Lee Hirsch, “Amandla! A Revolution in four Part Harmony,” had its first South African outing on June 16 at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. The film that earned two awards from the Sundance Film Festival describes the arc of the ANC’s resistance to apartheid from 1948 to the moment when Nelson Mandela dropped the first black vote into the ballot box in 1994 via the music that gave shape and direction to the war on apartheid. It has been entered for the US Academy awards. It will be showing in the States.

District Six
We visited the museum where a former Indian occupant expained that 60 to 70 thousand people-freed slaves, immigrants, labourers, merchants and artisans-used to live in the one and a half square km district spread along the flank of Table Mountain south of the center of Cape Town. In 1975 District Six was officially declared an area for white people only and bulldozed flat. All that remains now is a grassy area…but “they” had gotten rid of the Blacks, Colored and other undesirables that lived on the edge of the city…

The museum was established in 1992 to commemorate the destruction of the area and the sense of loss has been sensitively captured by the many artifacts donated by the ex-residents.

The Cannon is on Signal Hill right behind our apartment and is fired off every day at noon and makes your heart jump out of your skin. Started in the 1800’s we are told, when the English withdrew after the English/Boer War. They fire off the cannon 21 times at important times or when important dignitaries visit the city.

Hobas & Fish River Canyon

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June 11, 2002
On the way from Serus the topography is incredible–perfectly formed mesas and buttes-almost Utah-like. We stop in the tiny wide spot in the road called Bethanie. Bob mails a card to his mom and I buy some pop and sausage in the little market. We notice some light skinned women sitting around-told Bob they looked exactly like Central Asians; James says they are probably mixed Bushman and White.

Later I read Laurens Van Der Post describe the Bushman in his “The Lost World of the Kalahari” as having the face of a central African black turning into “a lovely Provencal apricot yellow” and that “he moved in the glare and glitter of Africa with a flame-like flicker of gold like a fresh young Mongol of the Central Mongolian plain…his cheeks high-boned like a Mongol’s….” Some description!

It’s Bob’s turn to read “Bang Bang Club” about the experiences of four photographers during the last four years of the war in the townships of South Africa before Nelson Mandela’s release and the first election to include blacks. If you want to know what it was like on the ground in those days this book is graphic. Michael, who is from Johannesburg, says that his dad had the
photography shop that sold the photographers their equipment.

The Bohemian Rhapsody is lifting us high on the stereo-Freddy Mercury singing in that glorious and sadly gone away voice!

We arrive at the camp and Rod registers us with the camp operator in his native Afrikaner and then directs us to “toilets and ablutions” (showers).

We eat lunch while the wind blows sand in our faces and our food; to keep the tents from rolling away we have to put our baggage in them and detatch them at the top from the frames. Adrian asks if anyone has any clothes “pigs” (pegs) and I am mystified until I realize he wants some clothes “pins.”

The truck drives us to Fish River to watch the sun set over the canyon. When we arrive back at the camp a Catholic school has brought about 150 middle school children from Windhoek to hike the canyon and they are all ready to sleep out on the lawn next to our tent. Needless to say, Bob and I quickly move our tent to the other side of the park and then we have Kudo steak, mashed potatoes and carrots and peas for dinner.

In the middle of the night it starts to rain and we hear the kids…then in the morning we find them all sleeping in the camp bathrooms.

Yainguaz Camp Near Gobabis

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June 1, 2002 Yainguaz Camp near Gobabis, Namibia
The countries of Botswana and Namibia are very different geographically from Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. The topography is flatter even than Botswana and much of Namibia is desert except for Brandburg Mountain, a huge marble massif rising out of the desert-also called Fire Mountain because of the way it appears at sunrise and sunset.

We still have to cross the Ondundozonananan (not a typo) Mountain Range in the south of the country before crossing into South Africa. Probably for this reason there are no villages or even huts along the road; the nomads in the area are few and we see only a few people in the small towns.

Crowded House, a New Zealand group is singing the chorus to “The Weather With You” which is “Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you”…and then “If you can’t change the world change yourself…” This music has played so much it has become the truck’s theme song.

It’s a breeze crossing the border into Namibia-and no charge for our visa. We are south of the equator now…it is winter and it is freezing cold but Rod doesn’t put the flaps down on the long-haul drive….and I suspect Bob has asked to have them rolled up so he can see out. I am fuming at what I consider his selfishness. We are all in our sleeping bags. We need the girls from Britain here to mutiny…You Bastard! Lorelle would have yelled!

Half frozen, we get to the camp after dark and put up the tents. James inspects a broken spring on the truck as we eat our dinner in the dark. We can’t use the multi-use hall of the camp to put our tents in as we had hoped because the Afrikaner farmers are having a joint birthday/wedding celebration and all the space is being used.

Bob has put the tent on a hump so I am cold and miserable all night as I scrunch down in the corner.

Poli Poli In Tanzania

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Tanzania
Walking around Poli Poli means “slowly, slowly” in Swahili. That is how we are learning to do everything like the others here in this hot humid equatorial country. We stop to buy a sugar cane juice drink with lime and ginger from a young fellow running long stalks of sugar cane through his little press on his little table. I don’t want ice, I say…Many of the cultural centers and their activities were closed because it was the off-season. If they don’t know the answer they will just say anything to save face…not a good thing if you are asking for directions…

You hear American Rap playing all over Africa. There is a definite feeling of solidarity with African-American youth…our own guys have let the cat out of the bag…a lot of the younger women wear plaited hair. A lot of adolescents have little tiny dreadlocks-girls and boys.

No one wants their photos taken here unless they are paid. Bob asked to take a picture of an artist who was working on some of the famous Ting Ting paintings in a local cooperative compound. Artist said “sure!” Then he said that it would cost $2.

Overland To Dar es Salaam

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Virtually no cars on the road; only trucks and buses and a few vans. The people seem like they don’t see many overlanders; some-mostly women and little children wave-sometimes with thumbs up; occasionally an adolescent will give us the finger; many children hold out their hands and come running-obviously having gotten handouts in the past.

No one wants their picture taken. Most will turn their backs or rub the thumb and forefinger together indicating they want money if they see you with a camera. Most feel that it is a violation to have their picture taken and they will all want to be paid at least a couple dollars. One roadside young man threatened to throw a bag or oranges at Bob when he was trying to take a picture while we were riding along in the truck.

The kids are playing a Bobby Marley tape “Get up, stand up, for your rights…” Marley’s anniversary of his death was this week and there was a huge party at the Africa House in Zanzibar-lots of Rastifarians (or wannabes) here.

Bring T Shirts or any other cool clothes that young people in the States wear for trading with the local guys-you could come away with virtually any arts and crafts pieces you ever wanted. There is no money to buy anything Francis says. Even the locals go to a seller and offer 50 cents for a dollar item, he says. So if they can swap what they have with you that is how they get their clothes. Saw a Cliff Richards T-shirt while we were stopped at a roadside gas station. Cliff Richards! Cliff Richards! I yelled at the guy…I know him…in Tempe Arizona! He just laughed.

Sign seen over a business by the side of the road: Camp David Resort

Fields along here are not the small one acre parcels tilled by each family. These are full of rice and sisal-part of a large corporation. Huge fields of corn are all hand tilled.

I love to see the children so proud of themselves in their school uniforms running along side the road after school.

Truck Camp in Dar
As we drove into Dar at sundown, we almost choked on diesel fumes and charcoal smoke rising up from all the dinner fires. Worse than Bangkok where people at least wear surgical face masks. The truck drove to the car ferry for the ride across the bay to the uphemistically named truck camp-Mikadi Beach Resort it is called-for our first view of the Indian Ocean. Then, hot and sweaty, we dove for the wonderful outdoor showers enclosed in tile and green plants-the cold water feeling glorious. Our meal is cooked tonight by the Mikadi Camp Restaurant-wonderful white fish roasted in foil, salads and the ubiquitous french fries. We had to pay the bartender $1 to plug in our electronics.

The next day, while waiting fot the ferry back across the bay to Dar I could look down at the little Abdallah shop selling an odd collection of hair products, Fanta, water, rope, twine, a bicycle tire, empty plastic jugs and eggs. A few feet away a young kid was selling live chickens from a basket tied to the back of his bicycle. Another fellow is pushing along a bike with huge yellow water jugs tied to the top and sides; Another bike has a huge basket of coconuts. A black Malcolm X T shirt worn by a young guy in dreads.

I see what I think is resentment in the eyes of many who look up at us-the healthy, well-fed, big, well-dressed, well-endowed, well-educated…rich..,.on the ferry three Muslim men are looking at the truck-an older one talking animatedly to a younger one….the more he talks the more distressed his friend looks..wish I could be a little bird…It occurs to me that they have to bad-talk the west so they won’t lost their young ones to it…Bob would say I am just making an assumption based on paranoia…but the Muslim is not an authority on the West, I think to myself. I want to speak for myself. I don’t want him interpreting my life to anyone and yet we in the West do that all the time to “the Others.”

I’ll be darned if I can remember anything, except breakfast, that George has cooked for us so far on this overland trip!

Last Night In Florence

Posted on by Laughingnomad

April 24, 2002
On the last day in Florence our room was booked by someone else and we had to move a few doors up the street to the Hotel Abaci. We had the Boticelli Room-pretty fancy compared to what we were used to. Many of the eight rooms in the hotel were right off the small dining area set up in the hall, so during breakfast people were coming out of their rooms in their jammies to cross the dining area to get to the WC around the corner-but they didn’t seem to mind a bit and neither did we-this is Europe.

In Florence I found internet nirvana. The young guys configured my computer so I could connect to their server and cut and paste my travel reports. Funniest experience was in Bayonne France where I asked to do this and they insisted I could just plug my phone wire into the wall and I’d be on the internet! The Senegalese guy at the local computer school really got a laugh out of that one. By the way, one of my readers says that her adult children, who are all computer nerds, contend that the reason the internet is not prominent in France is because the telephone wiring hasn’t been updated (except in the south) since World War I and doesn’t have the capacity.

In the old city near the Duomo where we were staying we passed a small church that was offering a concert with about 12 versions of Ave Maria sung by a young tenor. I thought I’d gone to heaven-for awhile anyway. Except for the American pop music played in most public venues, I realized we weren’t getting much good music, which, as a friend reminded us, is balm for the soul.