Oil and water?

Written around 2000

Suburbia in Johannesburg, South Africa. Barbed wire, german shepherds, armed personal. Why dont’you come over this weekend, we’re gonna throw a brai. Boerwurst, russian and steak. Bring your own drink. And don’t let the kids play close to the electric fence ...

First night I stayed at a hostel run by a German guy and his ma. “There were times when servants were treated like family, but they don’t want those times any more” – a sign said in the hallway. Zebra skin drums, painted wooden giraffes, spears and clubs next to the bar. Maybe a photo of Matobo on the wall. A place of benevolent spirits? Still, most people believe Apartheid was a mistake. It had been for some time then, in ’96, since Mandela took over from the clerk. South Africans, whites, blacks and in between, tried to come to terms with the past and find a new path. It was never going to be an easy ride, and the trip is far from over. A lot of misconceptions, misunderstanding, fear, and worse. Oil and water don’t mix. Or do they?


South Africa, at least on the surface, looks like a developed, western country with all the modern urban illnesses that go with that, but in an even more extreme form. There is, however, another world most travelers and many locals never see. I’ve been cruising around for some time, but it was in Transkei, this former homeland, where I felt for the first time I was really in Africa. From Umtata, the run-down capital, the bumpy road leading down to the coast took me through tranquil hills dotted with secluded homesteads, passed spread out villages and finally entered a lush river valley before reaching Port St. Johns. This small town is a predominantly black place. A world in reverse. You feel the curious looks on you, not necessarily hostile ones, but still there’s a touch of uneasiness. It’s they who are home, and you’re the visitor – or perhaps an intruder?

But the backpackers’ in town was a welcoming place with a very different attitude than the other hostels had – a statement of a kind saying that you can do it another way. It was a big house on a big plot of land, but without the paranoia and luxuries – gates wide open, self-serve coffee-shop, no TV, no phone. Entertainment was limited to playing boardgames, relaxing with others and a majestic forest view with colobus monkeys jumping around at the back. Two Australians were running the place with visibly a lot of free time on their hands – the pace of time here was definitely different. They got stuck in this place some moths ago, one of them even overstayed his visa, but he didn’t seem too worried about it. No rush, no worries, every day is a present.

In the hostel I met some more interesting characters. Bon and Synthia had been on the road for quite a while, staying in small villages along the way. Synthia usually found some work with local women, while Bon painted pictures of African landscapes and people which he were selling in town or at tourist spots. But also many locals used to come down from the surrounding villages. The area is home to the Xosa speaking Pondo tribe, most of whom still live more or less like their ancestors. Development didn’t reach them during the Apartheid era, and now, though willing, it’s hard to move forward from the little resources they have. But surprisingly enough, many “white settlers” found this lifestyle attractive, and moved down from the city to live the simple life of the locals. Some of them, like their African neighbours, were keeping goats and poultry and growing vegetables to make a living.

Rasta Dan, who despite his name had a very short hair, was a frequent visitor. He lived about an hour’s walk from the town with his beautiful Pondo girlfriend, making woodcarvings and leather goods. The house they stayed at wasn’t theirs, but the village staked out an area where they could build their own. Using mostly locally available materials – rocks, timber, mud – the work was already under way with help from friends. It wasn’t going to be a palace, but a dwelling comfortable enough. The location, however, was a million-dollar’s worth; high up on the cliffs on the coast overlooking the ocean and a rock-formation, the blow-hole, which sent a cloud of spray up in the air through a tunnel every time the waves hit the base.

One morning a tall guy with long blonde hair turned up with a couple of local kids. He was Craig, a botanist by qualification, who studied healing methods from a sangoma. Traditional belief systems are still holding strong, despite the European influence. Witch-doctors to some, sangomas play an important role. They have healing and magical powers – they know the different remedies found in nature and, to a varying extent, can communicate with the world beyond. It’s not a hereditary system and not based on sex, sangomas become one by falling very sick with visions when spirits visit and instruct them, and they have to appear in an older sangoma’s dream who will teach and guide them until they’re ready.

It is taken seriously, and not only by the Africans. Two Boer guys stayed for a night when a black woman sangoma came and invited us to a celebration taking place the following day somewhere further up the hills. The Boers declined, expectedly, but not out of skepticism. Boers, or Afrikaners, had been living closely with the natives for centuries, and despite their reputation as the racist ones, they know a lot about African customs and traditions. They survived wars, famine and concentration camps because of their own strong traditions based on hard labour and Christian values, but when we talked about the sangomas these guys told stories admitting their powers.

So a few of us, without the Boers, did go to the village. The celebration took all day and night with the whole village present and some higher ranking guests coming from as far as Umtata. None of us slept and when we returned to Port St. Johns we were tired and confused with the experience.
On my last day in town a white girl came around who I never saw before. She was a volunteer from the local school, teaching English to the kids. Education is regarded as the way out. Life in Transkei is interwoven with traditions, but people want more from the world we have. Electricity in the villages, education, jobs, better roads ...

I left Transkei with the Jolly Boys bus, a semi-trailer converted to taking passengers. Back in Jo’burg some days later, now I was saying good bye to South Africa and heading North to Zimbabwe - and Matobo. An air-conditioned luxury bus would take me in the evening, so I had plenty of time and were looking forward to an uneventful day – at least that’s what I thought, although unbeknown another surprise still waited for me. Consuming my breakfast, eggs, toast, tea, I was thinking about the injustices, paradoxes and satire of life... The rich living behind bars, the poor living free, criminals with guns and degrees taking their toll on both. What is development and what are basic needs? ... another sip of tea. On which end the egg must be broken? Are there only two ways? Either this or that? Win or loose? All or nothing, zero or one? ... a bite of toast, a bit of jam. Oil and water? ... man, that’s margarine.