South Africa’s oldest Presbyterian church lies silently with its brother in the hills an hour and a half from Grahamstown. They have been sitting in quiet contemplation for a very, very long time; and will likely contemplate a long time still.
Bodhisatta (n): In the Pali canon, the Bodhissata Siddhartha Gotama is described thus:
Before my awakening, when I was an unawakened Bodhisatta, being subject myself to birth, sought what was likewise subject to birth. Being subject myself to aging… illness… death… sorrow… defilement, I sought happiness in what was likewise subject to illness… death… sorrow… defilement.
Living in the Eastern Cape is living in a graveyard. The bleached bones of stories pierce the landscape in silence, clung to by the sinewy dust roads poking off the tar where life still moves. They relinquish their stories only to those who go looking. Quietly asking passers by to take a detour, explore. There is a treasure down every vein of tarless dirt.
The wind tumbles uncoordinatedly down the side roads. It’s the fastest thing in the quiet streets – not quite refreshing, but blowing hard enough to lift the heat from my skin, to make me believe that it’s not really as hot as it is. Dust crunches softly underfoot, leaping up in angry puffs as Yusuf, Katherine and I approach the community hall.
Camera in hand, I follow Hailey through the roads of Glenmore as the Sunday afternoon beats down on us. She, in turn, is following Ben Mafane, the township patriarch whose athletic frame understates his age. It’s easy to understand why he is dubbed the ‘Mandela of Glenmore’, having been a former boxer who now teaches the sport to many of the local youths. Some of them are with us, forming his entourage as we go from house to house.
As I go, I go. Landscape to greyscape to the inky-black unknown clacks past. Like the disjointed, rumbling machinery of some large clock in whose bowels I sleep out my delicious dreams and find these words anew. Tomorrow not only born another day, but a destination,a leg complete. Bringing with it the reward of a closer Cairo. Even now, it draws near, clack by clackity clack, the wheels of dharma turning as they must on rails that can lead to nowhere else. Propelled through the dark night of the world-is-not-a-world beyond the cold cabin glass.
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Packed, boarded the plane and now in Cape Town. Catching the overnight train back to Johannesburg tomorrow morning, to make one large and redundant loop – but if you are going to travel from Cape to Cairo, then one should really start in the Cape, no?
So just a short note to say that things are now in motion. Thank you so much to absolutely everyone who emailed, phoned, commented or otherwise tracked me down and wished me well. I love that I can take your wishes with me in the days ahead.
Love and excitement. So very much of both.
- Rich
It’s a warm Sunday, dry from the suggestion of highveld dust on the sleeping air. Mixed in with the breeze, sweetening it, the sound of praises being sung in a nearby suburban park. An innocuous place on any other day, Sunday has transformed it, becoming a church to the jubilant celebration of Christ. Worshippers in robes of lush blue and impossibly brilliant white shuffle, sway and weave between the ululating and singing of the possessed. No walking dog or pedestrian picnic will intrude on this space today. As if fuelled by the afternoon, drifting lazily past, their worship blooms, wanes, flickers and explodes with the birth and death of each Sunday moment. Thousands burned in a day. Read the rest of this entry »
This last weekend, John and I road tripped the almost two thousand odd kilometers to Cape Town, hitching a lift with Claire – who is unfortunately blogless. I have been to Cape Town before, but for John, it was his first time there since he was knee-high to a garden gnome. Exploring the city again over the four or so days we had there, I was reminded of a protracted argument on the roof of Fatima’s backpackers (the nice one) about which was the better city. I think there was some more subtlety to the actual dialogue than simply betterness, but many of the themes in that discussion seemed to surface and circulate this past trip, occasionally rather uncomfortably.
Some weeks ago, I was at the Mampoerfees (Mampoer Festival) in Cullinan, just east of Pretoria. I wrote about the bizarre sense of alienation I felt as an English South African here, but realise in retrospect that I completely forgot to actually talk a little more about some of what I actually saw at the event. Which makes for a fascinating probe into at least one part of traditional Afrikaner culture. Trying to get a grip on the weirdness in order to write about it was also one of the initial reasons for going in the first place. So that story will be told now
