Rags to riches has truly been the theme for my journey of the past couple of weeks: travelling through the Wild Coast, the Sunshine Coast and the Garden route --a surreal transformation from impoverished rurals to opulent suburbs. I feel a bit discombobulated, being sprung into the lap of luxury this way. Actually, I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland, having fallen down the rabbit hole and somehow ending up at the Queen of Hearts' garden party, playing croquet on an immaculate green lawn. It feels like at any moment the running water might disappear and the marble tiles beneath my feet give way beneath an uprising of termites.
This is the land of smooth cool marbleentryways and granite countertops, swimming pools, Keith Harrington prints, remote controlled gateways and pets napping languorously in patches of tiled sunlight. After a week of chillaxing in Durban, waiting for my Indian visa to come through, I hopped on the Baz Bus to travel through the Transkei and former 'homeland' of South Africa. You hear all kinds of horror stories about this stretch of wild, but it really reminded me of Ingwavuma, propelled onto a ribbon across the sky. The rondawels dotting the landscape tend to be a verdant aqua, with aluminum rooves instead of thatching. We did see an overturned bus on the route, with people scrambling out over the hillside, but no one seemed worse for the wear. We did all our travelling in the day, though our driver did tell us that when he used to be a transport driver travelling nights, he was hijacked and shot at, and actually killed a man once (in self-defense...but that's what they all say...)
I spent a night in Coffee Bay at the Coffee Shack, this rural backpackers with swinging hammocks and pool tables next to pebbled coves. The local Xhosa girls brought their beadwork for sale and performed dances and chanting while we ate warm maize bread and beef stirfry with red wine. I bonded with a couple from the Netherlands roasting marshmallows over the campfire and before we'd even introduced ourselves, they were inviting me to stay with them in Cape Town (which I took them up on.)
In Port Alfred, a small coastal village, my friend Trevor set me up with his in-laws, who live in a beachside home with gorgeous architecture. Windows stretching from floor to ceiling overlooking a huge expanse of garden, leading out to the sea, and a beautiful bedroom loft overlooking the living room. They have an incongrous duo of dogs, Stuker, this gorgeous russet Ridgeback who's very mellow, and Chica, an animated dachshund who yips and nips and circles around her companion like a Mexican jumping bean. The two are both pups, and they love wrestling in the yard. Stuker sometimes picks up the little one by the scruff of his neck, in his jaws, and drags him about the yard. I had fun running the beach with these two. They're such curious little critters, nosing bits of seaweed, and carrying strange prizes home in their jaws. It's a real change to run along the coast instead of mountains. It feels so liberating to breathe in the salt air and take a refreshing dip after a sweaty run. Graham and Helen were the perfect hosts. Helen and I went craft shopping and out for tea and rolled cinnamon-and-lemon pancakes; Graham took me 4 x 4'ing over russet red roads through the green, green bushveld on a mystery tour, and over to see the springboks bounding across the golf course. We had a braii outside on the patio, and ate roosterbrood (my spelling might be off there) [toasted garlic buns] and sausage and delectable pork cutlets marinated in some amazing special sauce. Helen was telling me about how they were robbed one night. Some youths came in over the wall, and she saw the security light flash on so knew something was up. She debated telling her husband but didn't want to wake him and knew it would be safer not to disturb the intruders, so rolled over and went to sleep! When her husband woke the next morning and exclaimed, "We've been robbed" upon going downstairs, she calmly replied, "I know." The robbers took their laptops, cell phones, food from the fridge and teatree oil! Now they have fences, gates, security, and the two dogs. Their son lives next door and is a surfer. They were telling me a frightening tale of how their son was out surfing with a mate, dangling his legs off his board, waiting for the next great wave, when he threw his hands up in the air and howled. His friends thought he was glorifying the waves, but he'd actually been bitten by a shark. They managed to rescue him and get him to hospital where a surgeon patched him up, but the shark had bitten both his legs and one was quite badly mangled at the time. It's weird how I decided to go surfing after hearing that story...
It happened like this. In Knysna, there was an ad for surfing lessons, so I decided to give it a whirl. Let me tell you, surfing is nothing like that Kate Bosworth movie, "Blue Crush". Actually, the part where she hit her head on the rock and was catapulted by the sea -- it was a lot like that part. First of all, the phrase 'surfing teacher' is a bit of an oxymoron. I don't really get it, because surfing I've discovered requires a lot of mental acuity and dexterity, but surfers seem to be tuned into some far-away galaxy that the rest of us aren't a part of. Our instructor showed the German girls and I how to get up on the surfboards by practising in the sand. It involves doing a kind of push-up while going on pointe with your big toe and pivoting into a lunge. A natural movement that you might find yourself doing in everyday life. The two German girls got it (they were like machines, man) but when he observed me, his comment was, "Nah, man. That's messed. Don't do that. Just in one movement, like." Once you take the board out onto the water, it's a lot like doing the burpees my trainer was always getting me to do, but on a moving board, while the sea attacks you. It is much harder than it looks, and my back and arm muscles were aching the next day. Standing up is a bit of a feat unto itself. I didn't really get it, and when I asked the surfing instructorfor pointers, he said, "Just like you did it in the sand, bru!" I said, "But you didn't like what I was doing in the sand!" The sea tossed me this way and that, and used my own surfboard as an instrument against me. I lost a contact lens and was surfing half blind, which didn't help my case. I got clobbered in the arm, the neck, the back. I fell off the board and was trapped in this whirlwind of a wave, ass over teakettle, not knowing which way was up or down. As soon as I made it up I was knocked flat by the next wave. Then the board came at me and cut right across my jugular, proving to me just why that would be an effective self-defense strategy when confronted by a robber. I managed to stand up once. Once! But I did find riding the waves on my knees to be a good thrill. At the end of it all, Don was grinning, "Ya had a great time, did ya, Jenny!" Jay-sus. I am going sandboarding in a couple of days. Let's hope I'm an Earth sign. That said, I learned a really important lesson that day. I wish I could remember what it was.
In Port Elizabeth, I stayed with Trev's schoolmates, Bryan and Leisha. Their house was incredible. They showed me where my room was and I couldn't even find it again, after hanging out in the lounge. They have flat screen TVs, a private bar, a gorgeous dining room table that would house the Knights of the Round Table and their families, and paintings the square footage of my rondawel in Ingwavuma. They have three daughters (and a menagerie of pets including two dogs, a cat and two parrots!) and for the one daughter's 13th birthday, they hosted a 'Pink Party' so when you enter the garage, it's painted in flourescent pink and black checkers, illuminated by a black light. Bryan works in robotics and animation and Leisha is a Corporate Safety Consultant. Talking to them was very illuminating. Leisha was telling me about the group dynamics of working with some of her clients. In particular the way certain tribes respond to royalty. She was working with the Princess of Venda, (the fourth wife) and when she became obstinate and passive-aggressive towards the workshops and walked out, the others would all follow, at the risk of losing their own jobs. I had encountered a similar group mentality situation in the rurals, so it was fascinating for me to hear her talk. When she confronted the others of the group without the Princess present, they all admitted that they didn't respect the Princess' actions or her persona, but that they had to show respect and complicity due to her royal status, although she had no 'real' power over them. Leisha pointed out that although she is not royality, she has more import over their jobs as they could lose them if she reports they are wasting company money (thousands of dollars) by absconding workshops. They all agreed this was logical, but tradition sometimes is so ingrained it trumps logic. Even when this Kingdom no longer officially exists under the new regime.
She was also telling me of two Hydroponics projects introduced into the townships on either side of Port Elizabeth. Same groups, culturally, economically, geographically. Yet one hydroponics plant was well-maintained, well-run and profited, while the other fell into ruin, rusted by the sea, leaving the tunnels derelict. They tried motivating, coaching, teaching in the failed hydroponics project and even brought in people from the successful hydroponics project to model strategies, and took the unsuccessful project managers to the other plant for a tour. Yet nothing changed. People, man.
Sometimes I do get confused by the very evident and continued subjugation of the poorer people here. Yet I've noticed something that I call 'occurence'. It's as though with some people, it occurs to them that they can have a brighter future, and they take measures to ensure that it happens, while others stay locked into the same gridlock of 'how it always was, and how it always will be.' For example, Fana went to invest in some MTN stock the other day and the man told him, "You know, you're the first person from Ingwavuma ever to have done this." Granted, the post-Apartheid era is still young, and integration and success don't happen overnight, but you do see some people seizing the day, while others continue to be sublimated. I asked a server at a restaurant the other day if she could tell my friends I wouldn't be able to meet them at 12 if they came by the restaurant. She became flustered, and told me to speak to the manager. Another time, I was at the movie house, but I was 7 rand short. I asked if I could still see the movie and bring the 7 rand in the next day. She became flustered, and told me to speak to the manager. There's still an attitude of 'White Man Knows Answer' and a lot of black faces behind the counters, while the white people dine. I've also seen the domestics, on their hands and knees scrubbing at marble floors which are non-pourous and easy to clean with a simple swipe of the mop, but I think old habits die hard.
I finished my coastal journey in Cape Town, where I stayed with my new friends from the Netherlands, Liz and Jan. Liz is a Corporate Executive for Shell who travels a lot on business and Jan runs two entrepreneurial businesses from home, one to deliver innovative vocabulary-learning through podcasting and the other to provide hosted, as opposed to 'in-house' servers for new and emerging companies in South Africa. He is living a terrific lifestyle as he can work from home and go to the beach twice a day. Liz and Jan have two pets, a black border collie named Snoop whom they got from the Rescue, and a beautiful black cat called Holly. Jan introduced me to the world of Kitesurfing. I watched him and his mate, Stein gambol in the waves as I ran alongside, downwind. What a young boy's dream, it's like being carried up in the wind by a balloon, and then deposited back on a wave. It's quite something to see all these bright crescent kites carving the sky, and the boarders doing suspended skateboard tricks, hovering over the choppy waves. We took Snoop out for some games of catch and toss on the shore, which he never tired of, and ate sampler salads and hot chocolate on the Boardwalk patios. Their home is beautiful too, a U-shaped structure encasing an outdoor courtyard and pool. I had my own wing!
I have definitely seen the other side of life here in South Africa, staying at all these palatial homes. It's still hard to take in, like running your fingers along a stone motif, tracing all the figures, concave and convex, undulating shapes, some carving in, some protuding out, and it all makes one picture, if you can just stand back far enought to see it. You wonder what the key is for the 'have nots'. Education, culture, belief, occurence? The Indian population, though brought here as indentured labourers, have now risen to the upper echelons of society and are some of the wealthiest South Africans. You see in Port Alfred these 3 million rand summer homes, sea-encrusted and abandoned, rising like monikers up on the coastline, while 2 kilometers away are all the RPD homes, where families crowd into one house to be able to rent out the neighbouring one. Sometimes the poorer people are employed as domestics, but when I ask the locals if the domestics can live there year-round and do maintenace on these houses while the owners are away, they emphatically respond, "No. Then there would be twenty people living here when the owners got back." So they stand like beautiful empty sea shells, while families crowd into alumninum shacks.
Today is my last day in South Africa and it is a bit heartwrenching. I have to say good-bye to Fana (and it's his birthday today, too) and my friends in Ingwavuma. I'll miss asking people for directions and have them wave their hand like a beached fish. I'll miss hearing "Only with pleasure" when I ask for small favours. I'll miss seeing people named for virtues: Beauty. Confidence. Assurance. And I'll miss people sweeping in small circles around me wherever I go. Like right now. Brooms and cell phones. Inelastic demand.
Next stop: Namibia.
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