IT’S BEEN A HARD DAYS WORK

We were excited about an upcoming overnight trip to East London to meet a bunch of influential big shots with oodles of money. We packed an overnight bag and left the lullies for the big city. 10 km’s before reaching East London we got a flat tyre and realized that the puncture which Theo had repaired with craft Genkem glue the week before, didn’t hold. Oh well, improvisation has its moments. We phoned Gwyn, the guy who had arranged the meeting and who generously offered to put us up while we were in EL. He organized a bakkie to pick us up and sort us out. What a nice guy.

He didn’t blink an eye when we finally arrived at his plush upmarket office, lugging our helmets with visors which are taped on with pieces of duct tape, the bike’s topbox, a rucksack while my helmet hair stood at all angles and my right boot was coated in oil.

He gave us the exclusive use of his house which had a massive flat screen DSTV and a jacuzzi bathtub. He even paid for the punctured tyre repair. Unfortunately the clutch housing broke when the bike got strapped onto the back of the bakkie so the trip cost us more than we planned especially since we decided to put a new front tyre on since we were in EL which rarely happens.

The meeting went well and everyone seemed quite impressed with our story of the work we do here and we walked away with many leads and have already had a follow up offer of 50 dictionaries which we are thrilled about. The next day we visited ITEC Learning Centre and met management staff who run a well established resource training centre in East London.

They are mostly involved in community programmes which develop young learners up to grade R but they also run a community library. They have set up programmes from empowering mothers to nurture their babies, setting up mobile libraries for schools as well as train crèche teachers.

Children visit their wonderful library where they, assisted by Xhosa volunteers, offer story book reading sessions, craft sessions such as drawing and making their own books. Children go there to read books or have short sessions on the 2 computers with internet access. Their centre was such an inspiration and we left there with more ideas, leads and a sense of achievement knowing that we weren’t just floundering, grasping at straws but in fact we had really achieved quite a lot and were headed in the right direction. If we could get our centre anywhere close to resembling theirs, I’d be thrilled.

Seeing so many people, walking the busy streets, popping in at all the shops, eating different food and chilling on a couch watching TV was refreshing. Telling our story over and over to interested people during the few days we were in EL made us feel alive and gave us a new zest to continue with our work.

Back at Qolora we attacked our admin with the same fierce urgency which seemed to have become a routine over the past few months. We finally finished our website which had been excruciatingly frustrating and tiring work. We’d also networked with many people and even visited the Department of Education which proved to be just as fruitless as we expected but at least now we have introduced ourselves to them. They asked the same question many people here ask, which is “what can you do for us?” or “what have you brought us?”

It’s always give me give me. Isolomzi SSS on the other had have reached success by helping themselves and we cant but help falling over our feet trying to promote their school and assist them. They are trying to get their computer lab up and running and we have started training the teachers who want to be equipped to follow it through to their learners.

We’ve become special members of their School Governing Body (SGB) which is quite an honor but more importantly, we have seen the principal be recognized by influential people who will continue helping him to reach his ever increasing new goals making education a success.

And that’s what makes another day in Africa, a day to smile about.

PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON, LIVED BY THE SEA

Living in rural Transkei, I’m reminded daily that Africa is a continent so very different to the rest of the world. I’m not referring to the fact that here women carry their groceries, luggage, wares, pots, firewood or a chicken balanced on their head as apposed to young ladies in the Swiss Alps balancing a book called Etiquette For Young Ladies on perfectly practiced poised heads. Nor am I referring to the extensive range of cutlery which the French endeavour to confuse diners with compared to the locals here who have simplified table settings down to a dessert spoon, your fingers and a shared knife. Life has not evolved at the same pace as other continents and I find it pleasing. Unfortunately, poverty and hunger seem to be part of the package which is the reality of many people who make up the population of Africa.

I never go to sleep hungry so perhaps I have a romantic view of life here on the southern tip of Africa where customs and traditions have not given way to the race of technology and its disastrous side effects which breeds greedy corporations indifferent to consequences and don’t give a rats arse about human life.

Now that I’ve got my philosophical opinions off my chest, let me elaborate about the uniqueness of life in Africa, Transkei in particular. I’ve discovered a fascinating myth while digging a bit deeper to discover the reasons why the Xhosa people take their bottles of sea water back home to the city with them over the Christmas holidays. It seems that the sea water is used comparable to what I would call a new year’s resolution. As you wash your face with the sea water and drink some, to flush out your system, (referred to as Spuits) you are washing away any bad omens of the year which has ended and you can start the new year fresh.

The intriguing part is still to come. Even though Xhosa people here in rural Qolora carry cell phones and like to wiggle to the beat of Kwaito music and hiphop, they still believe in and fear the myths of the witches who live at the bottom of the sea and any other deep body of water. These witches are way more powerful than the Loch Nest Monster and more real than mermaids who sunned themselves on rocks and octopi which swallowed whole ships when Bartholomew Diaz crossed unchartered waters. People on other continents fear a red skinned beast with horns, a long tail, armed with a pitchfork and lives in a big fiery cave slap bang in the centre of the earth. The witches, mermaids, underwater nymphs, spirits, sea people, deities, call them what you like, are just as real to the rural Xhosa people and just as frightening.

The story of people living in the sea has been confirmed to me by qualified school teachers and young adults and strangely, mostly practicing Christians. They tell me it’s a myth but in fact some are even afraid to talk about these witches for fear of inviting bad omens. I reassured a 19 year old guy that I understood his concerns and told him that people of my culture who dabbled in evil things like Ouija boards are considered just as foreboding by others and many people don’t like to talk about it or want to have anything to do with it.

Land witches are safe from the sea witches and I believe Sangomas sometimes go down to the beach at night to a specific spot to communicate with them, about what, I still haven’t discovered and quite frankly, I don’t fancy crouching behind a dune in the dead of night to find out what these sea creatures have to say for themselves. Anyway, apparently if you happen to be at the beach at the wrong time, these sea people will appear to you and can call you into the sea. They will lure you into the water and the sea will swallow you up and no one on shore will be able to prevent it from happening or be able to pull you back. A teacher recounted a story of a young girl who was taken by these sea witches a few years ago somewhere in East London. The Sangomas slaughtered a white cow (emphasis on white) which was led down to the same place where she walked into the sea, and they performed the necessary ritual which appeased the sea witches and the girl magically walked out of the ocean again. I’ve confirmed her story with others here in the village. The teacher did not believe the part which was retold that ants came out of the girls mouth or that she spoke in tongues once back on dry land, not believing it to be possible but the fact that she came out the water after having disappeared for days was not something to be scorned at since everyone knew it was true. Apparently these sea witches are most fond of young children so mothers keep their children away from the sea and even adults don’t go down for a swim even on hot days.

I think that by believing in something, you give it the power to make it real, be it good or bad, and so, the witches are given what they seek. Story telling is a way of keeping these myths alive and modern man’s alternative forms of entertainment have not overshadowed the art of keeping these stories and history of the Xhosa nation alive. Not yet anyway, but I wonder how long before these captivating customs and myths are totally buried with grandparents and replaced with the growing alcohol abuse or the desire to mimic the life of a movie star.

The Library

The Library





The Library is open but I don’t seem to have a stream of kids coming here to read books yet. During the school holidays three kids, Grade 1, Grade 4 and grade 6 came around to the library a few times. The first time the siblings stood at the gate, loudly singing the Yeeha Yeeha Ho from Old Mac Donald (which has become our signature calling card) in the hopes of catching my attention. They came running when I called them over and were very excited but shy about coming into the library. I gave them a 30 piece puzzle to build which they really struggled with but had fun trying while I tried some English on them but not too successfully. The next day they were back to build puzzles and I gave them each an English 1st Language Grade R activity book to colour in, since I had just unpacked a whole boxful. On the 3rd day, I told them they were each allowed to take one reading book home, which they did but that’s the last I saw of them. I think there’s a communication problem still.



The following week a high school student walked here from over the hill to visit an aunt from this community. Everyone around here has many aunts it seems. Also, I suspect the word “aunt” is used much the same as in Afrikaans where everyone is your “tannie”. Anyway his aunt told him about the library and the computer classes we offer. He spent the afternoon at the library while I showed him some features in the typing programme, although he did have some experience using a computer. We chatted in English which I think is good experience for the youth to build up their confidence. He shared a little of his family situation with me which really made me sit up and think. He is 17 years old, in grade 10 (that’s Std 8 if you are from my era) and lives in the shanty part of Butterworth which is the hustle bustle “city” 50 km’s from here. Last year his mother died so now it’s just himself and his younger brother who he has to raise. He wants his brother to be proud of him and his strong faith in Jesus, has guided him through life, and he prays he will be able to provide a respectful existence for himself and his brother. His face radiated happiness as he spoke, despite his hardships. I wonder if he will be able to finish school as he hopes or will he have to give it up to seek employment. He also told me that a few of his aunts were helping him out but he was disappointed in the one who lived in Gauteng because according to him, she could afford to buy him a laptop yet she wouldn’t. I scratched my head, having a bit more insight into how Ubuntu works. It seems family or neighbours help each other when necessary but I was surprised to realise that it is in fact expected of them. Perhaps that’s why sometimes Xhosa people look at some white people who have things, expecting them to share, since it’s the way they were brought up, to look after each other. White people on the other hand don’t generally practice the whole Ubuntu thing as a norm. We sometimes are too busy to even know our neighbours names, let alone help them financially and it sure isn’t expected of us to help put their kids through school.



In the meantime, it’s been 2 weeks and the books are all sitting pretty on the shelves in the library. I’m frustrated and wish the people would come here so that I can teach them to read. I can’t wait to share my knowledge but I have to learn that this is Africa. This is a place where time is measured by a slow sunset and not by the race of a heartbeat.

And so the sun sets on another day in Africa.

It’s just the bare necessities, the simply bare necessities of life.

It’s just the bare necessities, the simply bare necessities of life.


I wonder if I’ll ever understand the ways of the Xhosa people here. I’ve only been here a month so naturally it’s way too soon to even imagine that I’m close to knowing what makes them tick.

The cultural village rondavels where we are staying has given me lots to mull over. A few years ago some or other concern, I think it was the department of water conservation, pumped a lot of money into this development centre and it seems as though this place pumped. There is a massive woodwork rondavel where they made cupboards, chairs, blinds and screens from bamboo. At the leather rondavel, it seems as though hundreds of leather shoes, key rings, book covers and bags were produced. The dusty filing cabinets filled with fishmoth riddled paperwork indicates that different skills were taught here but when the development group left, for what ever reason I don’t presume to know, things just stopped. The fence has fallen down around vegetable garden which is now a field but the nursery is still standing although the sprinkler system doesn’t work anymore and in fact none of the taps around here work since apparently the road construction diggerloader rode over and broke all the irrigation piping at the project rondavels. The handful of crafter women left over from the project just sit around waiting for a miracle or for someone to fix things. That’s the way things appear to be from an outsider point of view. When I questioned Mandisa, who is making a desperate, albeit futile, effort to get things going again in some way, about the possibility of selling the machines for scrap and using the money constructively she showed concern that the people who ran the programme before, might return and demand their equipment back. The programme ended in 2004, which was 8 years ago and the sewing machine, the pattern press and the R100 000 or R200 000 woodwork saw is now a scrap of rusty metal from rotting outside in the rain ever since that rondavel roof caved in. About 4 or 5 women, Mandisa’s team, still come down here occasionally. They have made a few crafts and planted a few seedlings in the nursery which they want to sell but don’t have an offset. We mentioned to Faneka, one of these women that there is an opportunity right here on our doorstep to cook food for the 20 or so construction workers who are building a road here and who Mandisa rents out a few rondavels to for a site office and accommodation for couple of the workers. She seems very keen and wants to learn to cook but has missed out on the past 6 months that the workers have been here. There’s no electricity in the kitchen here but there is a lovely big gas stove and an empty gas bottle. She doesn’t have the know how or the money to lay out to get started. We hope to get this project going soon and I will write about its progress.

A lawyer from Cape Town has sometime ago, kindly sponsored stacks of books and computers which are in another rondavel here. I don’t know why but no-one ever bothered unpacking the books before so this week Theo and I helped ourselves to some of the dusty bamboo shelves from the woodwork rondavel and I’ve unpacked all the boxes, sorted and alphabetized all the books. The library now has one whole rack of wonderful reference books, another with great fiction books and a third with lovely story books for the younger children. There are even another two racks of high school text books which I’ve unpacked as well as a bunch of puzzles for the kids to do. Apparently during the school term, the high school kids come down here to use the computers but there’s no-one around to teach them so I don’t know how much they get used.

So, as a 1st world city person you are probably shaking your head, tsking away about the backward way things happen here. Let me tell you about a few other things which have come to my notice recently. A few days ago I asked Mandisa where she lived, assuming her house was over the road or down past the general dealer since, when she does pitch up here, she arrives at about 9 o clock in the morning and her 3 kids go to school where we teach which is down the road next to the general dealer. She turned around and pointed to the hill in the distance and told me that her house was way over there, more than 5km’s away and that’s why sometimes her children can’t go to school because when it rains, they can’t cross the river. Wow. So they don’t just jump into their double cab and drop the kids off at school when the weather is bad like the folks do back home. A few afternoons ago, 2 matric students pitched up at the computer room to see what was happening after hearing that we were here. They stayed a while, fiddling on the computers, playing music and we chatted in English. I offered to help them with homework projects etc when school starts again in 2 weeks time. Soon thereafter they said they had to leave before it got dark since they had to walk home. They live 10 km away from here so I guess they will spend a huge chunk of their afternoons walking to and from the library in their efforts to get their homework done to pass matric. No internet access at this library or in their bedroom at home so that they can cut copy paste like the kids do back home who prepare for the same matric paper. Today being Saturday is shopping day for many people here. It was raining so I stood in my rondavel doorway watching the countryside get wet and I noticed 3 women walking in the distance. They were on their way over the hill, laden with shopping balanced on their heads and clutching bags in both arms. I wondered how far they had walked already or how far they still had to go or whether they first needed to make a fire to cook dinner since I doubted they were carrying take away Pizzas to feed their families. Every day this week I’ve seen a bunch of kids with buckets on their heads off collecting water somewhere. Half the village’s water has been off for nearly a week again and it’s the 2nd time since we moved in here but luckily there is a rain tank here at the nursery where Theo fills our 20 litre plastic containers. I’m waiting for the water to come on again before I can do my washing in my fancy Sputnik washing machine which I proudly showed to some of the women here who admired it. Many of the people here do have those big green rainwater tanks but they don’t exactly run through to a tap in their kitchen or bathroom like they do in the city so you fill a bucket manually to wash dishes or your body. We have electricity in our rondavel (well we run an extension lead from the site office 60m away) so I’m thankful that I can quickly first boil my water and not have to make a fire first every time.

Last night we visited at Tim’s house (our new friend who I’ll tell you all about later) for a braai and a welcome shower. One of his workers, Doemesan, who had lingered a little later than usual and didn’t go home when the rest did, ended up hanging around for about 3 hours waiting for the moon to come out. He had to walk home, I don’t know how far but I do know that he also lives over the hill and had to walk through the river and his only light was the full moon which only rose at about 10 o clock. There’s a bus which runs to Kentani then on to Butterworth daily but that’s at 7 in the morning so great if you work there (I doubt anyone here does) or need to go there for shopping but otherwise around here after work (the lucky handful who do while the rest live on a government grant) you walk home no matter how far it is. Doemesan said we are teaching at the wrong school and that we should rather come over the hill nearer to his house to teach at the poor school where his kids go. I didn’t even know that there was another primary school other than the high school 15 km’s from here so I wonder if it’s as modern as the one we teach at which has an actual building and even has electricity in most of the 8 classrooms.

I haven’t even scratched the surface yet of finding out what these peoples dreams or ambitions are or what makes them happy or sad so I know that I have a lot to learn. What I have figured out so far is that the Xhosa people here have basic daily needs to attend to, like being able to get to school, access to water, collecting firewood and a simple thing which I take for granted such as the time of day is pertinent to going somewhere on foot like the library to learn how to type and still make it home before dark and definitely not what time the Cape Town Museum closes or what time the next episode of National Geographics is shown on the dish. Fanciful and complicated ideas like starting ones own business or the desire to know the diet of Eskimos are not high on the list of the adults here in Transkei. I on the other hand, once again forgot to close the door down at the ablution rondavel and now the goats have left what looks like 5 kg’s of chocolate coated raisons all over the floor. Oh Dear.



So, look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities of life. Forget about your worries and your strife. I mean the bare necessities, old Mother Nature’s recipes that brings the bare necessities of life. Wherever I wonder, wherever I roam I couldn’t be fonder of my big home.

Black Magic Woman

Black Magic Woman

We have moved around 3 times since coming to Qolora village.  Initially, we stayed for about 5 days at the first place which was at the awesome open field/braai spots but there wasn’t any water there (well ok there was a river mouth within walking distance) but we were a bit far from the village and we weren’t really getting to meet the locals by living on the outskirts of town.   Except one night when we got a bit spooked by three Xhosa women who could have put a spell on me.  Picture this, dusk settled over the deserted valley.  The wind pumped at a hectic speed strong enough to blow dogs down the hillside and even the cows hooked their horns into the bushes to keep from lifting off the ground and flying off.  We stayed inside while the caravan rocked and swayed.  Then we heard a faint drumming coming from across the river.  Earlier that day we had seen 3 Xhosa ladies dressed to the nines in their traditional outfits, the one woman was kitted out in a crisp white wrap around dress with a matching turban like headgear wrapped a half a meter above her head.  They spent a few hours across the field from where we were camped and I was dying to know what they were up to.  They walked around waving their arms in the air, shaking their sticks at invisible things and seemed to be anointing spirits in the way a priest performing an exorcist does in those PG18 movies when some poor child raised by obsessively religious parents living in a wooden double storey house with long creaky passages needs to be saved from evil demons who take over the child’s body and write coded messages across her stomach and spin her head around 360 degrees before making her vomit green stuff 6 metres across the room. But I digress.  These women blowing around on the field, flaying their arms and chanting, reminded me of something ominous is all I mean.  Then later when the sun slipped behind the hill, the women disappeared and that’s when the drumming started.  It beat rhythmically throughout the whole night while we lay there wondering whether there were people with sticks through their noses dancing around a big black pot suspended over a fire  and if so what was inside the pot?  Then we wondered how far away from us this scene was taking place.  It was pitch dark outside, and the howling wind and the beating drums were our only company in the dead of the night.  At 3am I eventually must have dozed off, deciding that if anyone wanted to cut out my kidneys for a ritual sacrifice there was nothing I could do about it.  The next morning we awoke and the landscape was still the same.  The wind had died and birds sang their morning song in the bushes, although how they managed to still have feathers and not look like pink crinkly naked newborn chicks after that wind sure beats me. Much to my relief, no dead goats’ heads dotted the field and no evil spirits evoked by the Xhosa women had entered my body through my nostrils while I slept.  We did find out a few days later that the women were indeed traditional healers but the night time drumming remained a mystery to us.          

Soon after, we moved from the field to a stunning little enclosure under lush vegetation behind one of the white peoples’ holiday houses.  There are about 20 such houses here, probably of which 5 are permanent residents. Anyway we loved our little Jamaican campsite under the palm trees, 5 meters from a quiet, pristine beach where Theo started catching fish more regularly and which tasted awesome.  Problem there was once again no water but we also were still not part of the village yet.  My idea of having the children visit me to help them with homework and practise their English would probably not likely happen if were settled in the “white” part of town.  We had asked the chief if we could move into the rondavels which we spotted when we first arrived in town but in Africa things happen at their own pace and we were still waiting for their response.  Eventually, after another meeting with the sub chief (the big chief had died the week before we arrived so that also left the villages with more important decisions to make than finding a home for us) we were given the go-ahead.  We could move into a rondavel and have free electricity in exchange for teaching at the school.  I was happy to pack up and move again, having just gotten my strength back after being down for 9 days with tick bite fever. It was my 3^rd time in 3 years and someone had told me that if I pushed through without antibiotics my body would fight it off for good.  I bravely sweated out a continuous headache, aching body and insides that felt like perhaps those women on the hill had removed my kidneys when I wasn’t looking.  You do think of strange things in the middle of the night when you become a bit delirious after 9 consecutive restless nights.       

So finally it was off to the rondavels which offered loads of potential in the way of getting involved in helping the villagers.  We spent two days moving into our wonderful hut with cow dung floors, grass roof and tiny windows overlooking the village on the one side and more open fields on the other.  The water pipe has burst but eventually we will get water but we have electricity, cellphone reception, some furniture and we are in the heart of things.  This is home.