Africa – Blog Bits

December 22, 2017December 23, 2017

Sunset on Table Mountain

Cape Town, South Africa, lies between the base of Table Mountain and the Atlantic Ocean. The mountaintop is flat – hence its name – and tourism has made it popular. Anyone who wants to see the top can do so via one of three different hiking trails or cable car. At the top visitors find educational trails, nature exhibits, a souvenir shop, and a couple of cafes, one with wifi.

At the top, a cloud. At the bottom, the city of Cape Town. In the distance, Table Bay, which opens into the Atlantic Ocean. — Cape Town from the Table Mountain cable car. Table Bay, which opens into the Atlantic Ocean, is in the distance.

When the weather is good, the line for the cable car is often 2 hours long. Those who buy tickets online in advance can expect a shorter wait, but still, a wait. After seeing the length of the morning line, Robin and I decided to go later in the afternoon and watch the sunset on the mountain.

We should have suspected that something was up when our cab dropped us off and there was no line at all. But no – we thought we were incredibly lucky. Our cable car wasn’t even full as we spun gently 1 kilometer to the top.

One of the trails headed up Table Mountain. Near the top, a cloud. Fog.

As we stepped off the cable car, shivering tourists stood in line, eager to go down. “Go back!” one shouted laughingly. The late afternoon breeze had brought a cloud and dense fog to the mountain. No wonder there had been no line!

Robin and I looked at each other and thought, “Well, we’re here. Let’s look around.” The swirling fog made it problematic, though. We couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of us. Wonderful displays were lost on us, since we couldn’t see, for example, the Twelve Apostles, a formation that a sign pointed toward.

A yellow October Rose Cockade Tree blooms at the top of Table Mountain. In the background, fog and stone. — The October Rose Cockade Tree blooms at the top of Table Mountain. In the background, fog and stone.

Red aloe blooming at the top of Table Mountain. — Aloe blooming at the top of Table Mountain.

A shrub grows amid rocks at the top of Table Mountain. — This shrub is part of the rich biodiversity of Table Mountain.

We made an effort to see what there was to see, but eventually we gave up and headed for the warmth of the souvenir shop. People were buying all the hoodies and slipping them on as they stood in line to pay for them. The shop was crowded and the line to go back down was long, so we went for a cuppa. The cafe had windows, but the fog blocked the view, so we sipped our tea and were grateful to be indoors and sitting down.

Then the fog swirled away, and we could see all the way down the mountain to the waves in the bay. The sun would soon set behind a strip of cloud. It was so beautiful that we sat in silence.

The fog rolled back in, and our window returned to milky gray. We clinked our paper tea cups in a toast. “That was really something!” “Yeah, it was.”

Our trip was nearly over. We had met wonderful people, watched amazing animals, eaten exotic food, and learned a little about life in Africa. We would go our separate ways the next day. It was enough to be present in this moment.

A couple of minutes later the fog rolled away again. The setting sun felt like a benediction.

The fog rolled back in. It let us watch one last time, and then it was time to head back down.

December 16, 2017January 13, 2018

Ghost town in the Kalahari

A traditional Bushman grass hut, round with a pointed roof. The hut is framed in the photo by a tree to the left and a tree in the right foreground. — A traditional San Bushman grass hut

In the United States we have ghost towns, buildings that once housed a bustling community, now abandoned. Sometimes the buildings are maintained for tourists and historians. As the San Bushmen are forced away from their traditional lifestyle and into a more western one, someone has thought to maintain these traditional dwellings. They’re empty inside – nothing to see. Tourists take pictures and then spend the night in quarters that have plumbing and electricity.

Our evening’s entertainment came from a group of San Bushman who presented songs and dances from the old days. They dressed in traditional clothing. The women sat around the campfire and sang; the men danced around them and joined in the singing. The men wore rattles tied around their legs from the knee to the ankle with a leather thong. The rattles shook in perfect rhythm to the women’s singing.

(It was night, so my camera captured less than the eye could see, but the sound is good.)

I was conflicted with the idea of the Bushmen “selling” their traditional culture to make money from people like me, people who tried to be respectful but couldn’t really understand it and who would be gone tomorrow. The women sitting on the ground were a little cold – it was night, and they kept wrapping their blankets close – and there were small children to keep an eye on while they were singing. (One little guy, just old enough to walk, was trying to dance with the men.) On the other hand, they were choosing to do this to earn money. It was theater. The audience paid, was entertained, and applauded.

It’s hard to let both of those ideas stand there without choosing between them, but ultimately that’s what I have to do: both are present, the bad and the good. As long as the performance remains a choice for them, I can deal with it.

Traditional Bushman grass huts — This collection of traditional San Bushman huts is now part of a hotel complex on the edge of the Kalahari Desert.

This video runs 3:10. In the past this dance was performed before the men went hunting. The video opens with the end of an explanation in English. During the video other photographers take flash photos, and you can see the dancers more clearly. It’s easier to see detail if you open up to full screen view.

December 15, 2017December 16, 2017

Travel is fatal to prejudice

Travel is fatal to prejudice. – Mark Twain

In her 2009 TED talk African author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie relates the effect of stereotypes. When her college roommate in Philadelphia heard that Ms. Adichie was from Nigeria, she assumed that her family lived in a village of grass huts without modern appliances and that she grew up listening to traditional tribal music. In fact, Adichie grew up on a college campus and listened to music from singers like Mariah Carey.

Many of us learned what little we know about ordinary life in Africa from old movies. Inaccurate information and unsubtle racism shaped those images, and not much has replaced them. I found myself confronting my own ignorance on this trip. I’d like to present more recent images in case you, too, would like an update.

The city of Maun in Botswana has about 55,000 people, large enough for nearby villages to have become suburbs. I don’t know the name of this village that we drove through on the outskirts of Maun, but a simple drive was enlightening. The village has brick homes, a brick school, cars, power lines, planned streets, fenced yards, infrastructure in place. There are also homes built with cinder block, which I suspect stays fairly cool in African heat, and some built with corrugated metal, which wouldn’t stay as cool. There is one traditional round hut (at :30-:33). All of the other buildings are western in style.

Phone technology may leapfrog in parts of Africa. Cell phones were everywhere, and wifi was common, at least in our hotels. However, I didn’t see a lot of phone poles or wires, suggesting that parts of Botswana may skip landlines altogether. Solar water heaters were common. Solar power cells were not unusual. Not everyone had a car, but taxi service was readily available.

Cities like Swapkomund in Namibia showed more foreign influence. Namibia was colonized by Germany in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and evidence of that influence remains in placenames and architecture. Since the African nations have become independent, though, they have built on established infrastructure and emphasized local culture.

A hotel built to look like a Swiss chalet, with a courtyard and a bottlebrush tree. — A hotel in Namibia looks like a Swiss chalet and reveals German influence. The tree in the courtyard is a bottlebrush.

Outside the old part of the city – the historically white part of town – things are different. In the older part of “The Township” – the historically black part of town – established homes show the results of economic opportunity and growth.

This Herero woman (whose name I regret I didn’t get) welcomed us to walk through her home in the oldest part of The Township. The back door opened into the kitchen, with a beautiful glossy white tile floor and standard appliances – stove, refrigerator, and microwave. Her living room (and I assume the rest of the house – I didn’t snoop!) was well furnished, with curtains drawn against the heat of the day.

This kitchen has white glossy floor tile, wood cabinetry, a microwave oven on the right, and 4 people. — This Herero woman invited us into her home in the oldest part of the township. The microwave oven, right, sits across from a standard refrigerator and stove.

The Township is growing as more Namibians leave villages and smaller towns, looking for work. The Namibian government is trying to help people buy their own newer homes using a lottery system, but the need outstrips the program.

To the left, laundry dries in bright sunshine. To the right, a little girl stands by the back door of her home. — Farther out in the township, laundry dries in sunshine. A little girl stands by the back door of her home.

In the newest parts of The Township, people live in whatever they can find or build, working when they can, saving what they can, and waiting for each year’s annual lottery, hoping to upgrade. Entrepreneurship is the rule. Workers often have 2 or 3 jobs or a job and a small business. Winning the lottery doesn’t guarantee money; it guarantees help with financing a home.

Five or more homes built from scrap. The edge of the street is marked with old tires partially buried vertically. — Township homes built from scrap and not intended to be permanent. Old tires partially buried vertically mark the edge of the street.

Third World poverty is real in Africa, but it’s not the only story. Grass huts are probably real in remote areas, but most people don’t live like that any more. Africa is working hard to educate its children, house its families, and develop economic opportunities for everyone. The growth is uneven, as it is everywhere, but it is real.