Drakensberg

A couple Fridays ago, school was cancelled because of student protests. I’m not entirely sure what they’re protesting for, but it’s been happening off and on at another campus of my university for the past few weeks and I think it generally has to do with complaints about financial aid. We found out at about 11am on Friday that the practical we were supposed to have on Saturday was also cancelled and there wasn’t a soccer game that week, so three of my friends and I decided to take the opportunity to go to the Drakensberg Mountains. We rented a car and Caroline was brave enough to drive for two hours on the left side of the road. We almost hit one cow. When we arrived at our hostel, the stars were amazing. There were tons and tons and tons of them, and it was a great view of the Milky Way.

This was the view out our window when we woke up on Saturday morning.

We went hiking with a really great tour guide who told us about the Xam (the x is a lateral click) Bushmen who inhabited this area starting 10,000 years ago. He showed us which plants they ate, which had to be soaked in the river for three days before eating, and which are poisonous. Apparently nearly all of them tasted pretty bad, but we were able to drink the water in the streams and that was delicious.

Our guide also knew a lot about the animals of the area. This is porcupine poop.

He identified these as gray rhebuck just by the sound, and then let us look at them through his binoculars. (If you click on the picture, it'll load a bigger version.)

(There are more pictures of the beautiful mountains on my facebook.)

Our destination was Bushman paintings on several huge rocks. The predominant colour was red (from iron oxide), and they also used charcoal for black and bird poop for white. The pigments were mixed with fat so that the paintings they made with fingers or sticks endure for thousands of years.

Shaman painted what they saw while in a trance, so sometimes the people or animals had unrealistic extra body parts. For example this antelope’s tail is much longer than its legs.

The paintings in this area haven’t been dated, but researchers are pretty sure they were made sometime in the past 4,000 years. The oldest cave paintings in Africa, and likely the world, are found in Namibia and are over 20,000 years old. The Bushman put their paintings on top of those of previous generations, which makes it particularly difficult to date them. Based on his size and proportions, our tour guide identified the large man on the left as a Bantu person rather than a Bushman.

These paintings of elands incorporate the blending of two colours, which indicates that they are from the latest period of Bushman art. They painted animals to capture their spirit on the wall which made their hunt more successful the next day.

Nearly all the people painted are men (all the painters were also men), and anyone carrying a bow and arrows is definitely a man.

The few women are identifiable by their very large buttocks (apparently that’s how Bushman women looked.)

  After lunch, we continued our beautiful hike.

When it’s raining and sunny at the same time, South Africans say it’s a monkey’s wedding. No one I’ve asked has any idea why, but at any rate, there was an amazing rainbow. We could even see just where it touched the ground, and though it was quite close to where we were, our guide insisted on going the other direction rather than searching for the pot of gold.

Then we saw a lovely waterfall. We took off our shoes to cross the river above the falls, and ironically before we even got our shoes back on, it had started raining and the last 20 minutes of our hike left us entirely soaked.

Finding South Africa

After determining that I’m from the United States, the second question people ask is, “How are you finding South Africa?” My original response was “I like it, but it’s so hot here.” Then I tried, “I like it. There are so many amazing animals here,” but I gradually learned that my (apparently) unnatural interest in animals makes me seem particularly foreign. Recently I’ve been trying, “I like it; it’s beautiful!” I ran into a couple girls from the Peace Corps, and they said this is the answer they always use to avoid mentioning the many things about South Africa that they find decidedly unpleasant.

                As much as I appreciate the climate, flora, and fauna here, biotic and abiotic factors don’t define a country. It makes me think of the question in a different sense, and wonder if I’m even qualified to answer it. Have I “found” South Africa yet? What am I doing to find it?

                I’ve been participating in a tutoring program where students from surrounding secondary schools (grades 8-12) come to the Old Main Building on my campus and university students tutor them in all their subjects. I volunteered to do math, so my first week, I was put in front of a classroom of about 30 grade 11 students, given a math textbook taken from a student in the front row, and told that at least some of them are learning probability right now. South Africans have flowers and antelope on their coins, so I have no idea if they use heads-or-tails terminology, but I delivered an impromptu 45-minute lecture on probability. I think most of them understood most of what I said. In subsequent weeks, I’ve gotten the students to ask me questions they have from their classes, so I know I’m at least helping some of them, though it’s still hard because they all come from different high schools.

                This week, there was a meeting for the parents. It began on Africa time (30 minutes late with half the students standing in the back because there still weren’t enough chairs). When it was time to officially start, some girl in the audience with a beautiful, loud voice started singing a melody in Zulu, and the whole crowd joined in with a lower ostinato. The girl’s voice soared above the congregation, and the same words were repeated several times, so I quietly joined in the harmony. Then the umfundisi (pastor/reverend) who was in charge called on someone to pray. There were four people in attendance who didn’t know Zulu (me, two Indian students, and another tutor who’s Pedi) so our neighbours were instructed to translate for us, and the meeting proceeded in Zulu. At the end, all the tutors were asked to introduce ourselves with our name, surname, where we’re from, what we study, and what we teach. I knew this was coming, so I’d been practicing the Zulu in my head throughout the meeting, but I still nervously stumbled over my words as I stood up and said “Sanibonani Bazali” (Good morning parents). Everyone laughed and the others quickly assured me that English was fine, but I pushed forward, “Igama lami ngu-Erika Anderson. Ngivela eMelika. Ngifunda ibhayoloji. Ngifundisa imaths.” The audience all cheered and clapped for me. I had said something very simple, but saying it in front of 100 people was scary. The rest of the day, the other tutors asked me one by one where I learned to say these things in perfect Zulu. It was pretty cool.

                There’s a woman who lives on my floor who is coming back to school now that her kids are grown up and working. She’s always cooking delicious-looking, interesting food, so Becky and I asked her to teach us how to make a good South African dish. I think curry is the food most commonly made by the South Africa students on my floor, so tonight we made curry with potatoes, carrots, peas, and chicken. It was absolutely delicious. Here are Mbali, me, and Becky about to eat.

  
This post already drastically defies my self-imposed regulations for text-to-photo ratio, so I’ll forgo a thoughtful conclusion about how these little experiences represent South Africa for me in a way that's very different from, say, seeing a giraffe. Finding South Africa is something I’m working on, and I’m enjoying it.