Check out Private Art

http://www.facebook.com/privateartmn

http://www.mnartists.org/Private_Art

At link see more pictures of the trip in albums, see: https://www.facebook.com/susancolbystjohn

Around the world in 111 days...

Circumnavigation route

Leaving Montreal at the end of August

Parents waving us off

Moving along the Saint Lawrence Seaway

Our pilot boat saying goodbye

Landfall in Casablanca

Moroccans in traditional dress.

Assalam a alaykam,  good day and God be with you.

From our birth in the Port of Casablanca - the minaret of the great Hassan II Mosque

Morocco, a beautiful country of magical difference and coexistence is located at the top of Africa, in front of the Rock of Gibraltar --- a great rock put there by Hercules to separate the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic. 

Morocco is the gateway and gatekeeper from one continent to another and a melting pot of Arab, African, Christian, Jewish, Berber, and European cultures, politics and religions. 

Its heritage dates back centuries before Christ. It is a country of incredible contrast: two mountain ranges, the Rif and Atlas; desert sands of the Sahara and two seasides, one along the Atlantic and the other on the rim of the Mediterranean; fertile valleys irrigated by a series of dams; several official languages -- Arabic, the language of poets and French, the language of Morocco as a French Protectorate.

While Berber has been a dominant oral language and defining culture for centuries, it has only just become a written language in the last ten years.  Recently this language of 40% to 50% of the population was recognized as the third official language by King Mohammed VI,  Morocco’s educated and highly respected monarch.

As you can imagine, making landfall after nine days crossing the Atlantic was a celebrated happening. Before dawn we waited on the top deck looking ahead ....First we saw the birds and then the dolphins greeted us and finally as we watched the lightness of the sun on the horizon, we began to see an outline of land with a tower rising up above all else. There was a beautiful sunrise as dawn broke on Casablanca. 

The tower we saw so early was the minaret of the great Hassan II Mosque that dominates the shoreline as you sail into the harbor.

Shoreline of Casablanca dominated by the minaret of the great Hassan II Mosque at sunrise as we made landfall in Morocco after crossing the Atlantic.

Catching the sunlight and glittering above all other structures on the active skyline was the great Hassan II Mosque, a monumental symbol of Islam built in the 1980s with donations that totaled over one half a billion dollars. (This extravagant cost is controversial.)  With space inside to hold 25,000 worshipers, the outside promenades and courtyards can accommodate 80,000 more. 

Third largest Mosque in the world, it is magnificent in its traditional architectural style and a gorgeous expression of Islamic religious art with hand crafted carved stone, marble and granite for massive pillars, columns and stairways. Rich cedar wood and stucco with exquisite tile work in elegant colors for the intricate iconographic designs that adorn the columns, walls and ceilings of this sacred place were masterfully constructed by tens of thousands of highly skilled craftsmen. 

Hassan II Mosque featuring the minaret that points its laser beam to Mecca

Intricate tile and decorative stone and stucco

The Hassan II Mosque is the only mosque that allows non-believers entry. For Casablanca it is a tourist attraction, for the Arab world it is a destination for the faithful - a pilgrimage site. On top of the minaret is a laser beam pointing the way to Mecca. 

We arrived just two days after the close of Ramadan. Everyone was out celebrating and feasting along the shoreline enjoying the sun and the holiday weekend with groups of family and friends. It was like home on a nice summer day only much busier and bigger in its outdoor space and everyone was wearing their jalapas.

Walking on the vast promenade of the Hassan II Mosque

 

Families enjoying the weekend vacation on the shore next to the Hassan II Mosque

Upon our arrival - once in the harbor, our ship was guided into the container port by a harbor pilot who then went onto his tender and waved many goodbyes. Safe in a secluded area of this busy port, our ship was cordoned off ---we looked out on a field of multi-colored storage containers and across to tankers and cargo ships awaiting their next load. In back of us was a ship that looked like a US army destroyer without designation.

At this first port visit it was quite interesting to experience the ship’s security and how careful even we had to be when leaving and entering the ship. Everyone had to carry passports and key information about the ship when we disembarked and we hid our money in secret places. 

There was heavy security in place for all people coming on board including the man from the US Embassy who greeted us as well as other visitors who come on board to augment the classes. Docked in a container area and cordoned off ---we were about a mile + from the main entrance to the port. It felt great one night when we walked fast from  Rick’s Cafe to the ship. You forget the benefit of exercise like that. Hummm.

Rick's Cafe

Casablanca’s French Quarter with its Art Deco design looks very much like the French Quarter in New Orleans but in other areas, the city reminds me of Monte Carlo with  elegant structures of white stucco surrounded by tall white walls with colorful foliage spilling over the top. It is a city of maybe three million that is bustling, very clean and welcoming to tourists.  Semitropical, palm trees and green vegetation add to its elegance and beauty. 

The King of Saudi Arabia has a magnificent compound overlooking the beautiful beaches on the Atlantic that actually includes a palace and his own mosque. We saw such differences in the life of this city and those we visited.....the cars are new and many are Mercedes but the real mode of travel for farmers and people just lugging things around is the donkey. 

These scenes of contrast in Morocco are ever present emblems of the huge gulf between the very rich and the very poor.

 A small market in Casablanca shows the contrast within this modern city.

A merchant in the market taking time out for daily prayers.

 
 As a result of the recent Arab Spring, this summer the King Mohammed VI made widespread reforms which included relinquishing some of his power in favor of parliamentary government and new rights for women. Today all children are supported with schooling and books until the age of 17. In favor of gender equality, new rights for women now include the right for women to initiate divorce. If her case is worthy, she by law can also retain the family home and receive support monthly from her former mate. This was gutsy, tough reform for a largely Muslim population. 

Nevertheless, with tremendous institutional change within the last year, and an enlightened and fair monarch, Moroccans are still calling for more freedoms and rights ---not loudly, but with authority. 

In addition, some countrymen are now returning home from Algeria, Libya and Egypt having lost full-time employment. While adding economic burden, these newly unemployed citizens have added to the voices of political and social discontent.  Most people we have met on the street and throughout the country seemed satisfied both with their King and his intelligent leadership. 

However, there exists a constant tension for more freedom, more support. Upcoming events this fall will be interesting.

Mohammed VI of Morocco

Although there is western dress all over, people on the streets of Casablanca, Fes and elsewhere also wear the traditional dress-the jalaba. City dwellers must have a wardrobe that is both traditional and western. Groups of friends will be wearing both traditonal and western dress.The jalaba is comfortable to wear and it gets hot here in the summer---over 100 degrees sometimes. I would love to have one but had no time to shop. Maybe I’ll return!

We traveled away from Casablanca to Fes, an ancient capital city, and to Volubulis, with the ancient well preserved remains of a Roman city in a beautiful fertile valley near Fes.

Away from the city and in the Medinas, the old centers of the cities -- you immediately are transported back many centuries seeing farmers prodding heavily laden donkeys and shepards herding sheep and goats. 

Post office, Volubulis  I always was searching for a post office. They always were hidden and closed.

Roman Ruins --- Volubulis

Volubulis

 

 

Volubulis and the fertile valley surrounding this ancient Roman city.

Exquisite tile work ---the Roman ruins- Volubulis

Elegant carved  capital - the ruins of Volubulis

Mosaics are designs or pictorial representations made using small pieces of colored stone, marble or a glass specially manufactured for the purpose called tesserae.

In the Roman period, these materials were pressed into grout, a soft cement, then left undisturbed until set. The gaps between the stones were then filled with cement, the composition was then cleaned and polished.

Besides copying Greek paintings, mosaics often carried geometric designs. Sometimes these designs were used as frameworks for detailed compositions, commonly of everyday life especial featuring gardens and plant material. Mosaics also depicted gods and goddesses.

Mosiacists used shading to achieve three-dimensionality, as well as foreshortening, a technique that causes features in a painting to appear close. Elements like shadow and light were employed to make a mosaic appear as real as possible

Within the Medinas of Casablanca and Fes, the donkeys are the mode of travel for both

people and burden.

Truly this a country of contrast -- especially between the present and the past.

The ancient Medina of Fes, a protected and restored world heritage site, houses three hundred thousand people. Mosques, a public bakery, artisans workrooms, shops and schools thrive within this special inner city in much the same way they did centuries ago. 

Built in the 8th century,  the oldest University in the world was established here by a woman- Fatima- (represented by a hand) and in the 10th century an underground system to manage water was developed. Also inside this complex was a special school for young boys who at the age of 10 could repeat the Koran from memory. If meeting admission standards,  these gifted children would remain in the boarding school for 7 years and continue a liberal arts education orally.

Horse meat shop inside the Medina at Fes

Walking single file into the Medina--the donkey
carries burdens within the Medina

Exquisite tile work and intriicate carved stone within the Medina.

The buildings of the old Medina look hand etched out of stone put in place centuries ago.  Most of  the hallways are only as wide as my shoulders. Getting lost in the darkened labyrinth of hallways is, of course, inevitable. You need a guide to find your way in and out. 

Families are living and working here who can look back to centuries of kin and know their lives are much the same. They are assured of their place in this ancient Medina as long as they live and their children will inherit the privilege after them. Architects are available at no cost to help them keep their structures functional and still at one with the ancient standards and aesthetic. 

Those that live in this special place live the ancient way--- it’s hard, it’s cramped and yet, the residents feel privileged and cherish their history and its proud connection to preservation.

This preservation and its real value is wonderful to see most especially as a counterpoint to the very westernized development of Casablanca.

Walking through the Medina ---- lit by an  unusually bright opening to the outside and sun.

 
 

Within the Medina complex - Looking over rooftops to leather drying in the sun.
Used to make clothing, shoes and hand bags, this leather work is hand done inside the ancient complex.

Outside of the Medina is the tile - making/pottery quarter filled with artisans who create today the famous tiles/pottery of Fes just as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. The tiles, no different than they’ve been for centuries, are made by hand and painted with mineral based colors with incredibly intricate designs.

Someone told us Fes means pick ax. It must have taken thousands to create this magnificent city largely built from highly skilled, chiseled stone work.

Hand painting the pottery.

Creating the tiles

Iconic hand painted designs of Islam

 

Much of our education over the past two weeks has been about religion and culture. Close ties to Judaism are especially evident in Morocco.The Moroccan King’s palaces throughout history always have been connected to a Jewish business district where Jewish businessmen have provided royalty with the administrative and economic expertise to run the country. They still do this today. And Jews still hold a privileged place in this society. The red Moroccan flag has a green star at its center. Originally, it was the six pointed star of Abraham, it now has five points showing its significance as Moroccan. This change only happened recently.
       
Everyone we have met has been educated and very interested in us learning more about the positive aspects of Islam and life in Morocco. One of our Moroccan guide/teachers has her PHD and has been working on the establishment of a written Berber language. Married, her wedding band of 7 silver rings indicates she is a seventh generation Berber -- around her neck she wears a pendant indicating her clan affiliation. 

Proudly Berber and an active community leader, she was engaging, funny and a great spokeswoman for her country.  While dressed in a traditional jalaba with her head covered, she performed the many roles of her active life as a thoroughly liberated Moroccan woman and extolled all the new and liberating reforms.

Letters of the new Berber written language.

While the average income is about $3K, King Mohammed VI's expertise and Morocco's  market economy has helped the country to grow and become self sufficient without the benefits of oil. 

Tourism is a big economic boost but there are pressures surrounding Morocco. In spite of the abundance we saw in Casablanca and some industrial areas, there is great poverty. Everywhere merchants and taxi drivers and storekeepers we met needed to make a sale. I spent my thirty dollars in dirhans very quickly on essentials like water, postcards and stamps.

About food...

In Fes we ate delicious Tagines every day and we went to Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca for a drink. Rick's is owned by an American and while very nice, it is not the stage set in the wonderful old movie.  Nevertheless, all the tourists have to stop in -- if just for a drink, and hear ....."I must remember this..."    The piano music is just the same.

Green is a national color and all the MacDonalds have green tile roofs indicating perhaps they are now a part of the national agenda. During Ramadan they even served some of the Moroccan national specialties.We didn’t go to MCD’s.

Tagines---delicious! Ah, yes! I ate just what the students were served on our outings---tagines-- but managed to get Traveler’s Disease and was out of commission for a few days so will be chewing Pepto Dismal forever after when away from the ship. Many have had this same problem after our ventures out into North Africa. Our systems are too protected so maybe this first initiation will steel our insides for tolerance to a new kind of dirt and grime later on. Let’s hope so.

Tagines

 

School & Etc: The pace here is swift with classes and programs all day so it is difficult to get in the readings and do all the school work. I forgot how hard it is to be back at school. The courses are good and the programs fascinating. There are programs before and after dinners and activity that never seems to stop even at night.

Funny but it was nice to be back on the ship and feel the sea after a night out and a long
bus ride from Fes...the sea and its waves were comforting. Even though I was sick,  it felt good to be home again.

So many of the students had amazing experiences with people of Morocco as we did. My friend Kate and two of her group found gracious strangers in Rabat who asked them into their homes and hosted them for the night. 

Others who displayed too much wealth were harassed by merchants, a few were robbed. In all cases, however, the groups found most Moroccans intelligent and wise. It was uplifting to hear their perspective on the Arab Spring and their own hopes for continued reform and their pride in Morocco.

 A group of students arranged an overnight to the desert. It took them fourteen hours to reach a Berber tent camp in the desert but once there, they danced and ate and slept under the stars and rode camels the next day and drummed and danced again. The camp was only 40 miles from the Algerian border. Another group hiked for seven miles daily in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains and stayed with a family. They slept on top of the house under the stars at night.
 
The elegance and beauty of the preserved antiquities and the diverse natural landscape coupled with a Mediterranean climate make Morocco very special. Apparently many European retirees are settling in Tangier. And, of course, Jim Morrison and the Beatles found the beaches of Essaouira a great place to jam and relax and escape.

iconic Islamic design work

 

Exquisite intricate design in metal doorways

We will be stopping in the Canaries -Las Palmas--for gas tomorrow --they say it will take six hours ---- we cannot debark but can gaze at the islands. Afterwards  -- for the next six days we will be at sea traveling to Ghana. I will be studying---always trying to catch up-- and attempting once again to get my pictures reduced enough to email and blog to you. And I will begin my anti- malaria pills soon.  
        

Looking out at the hills of Las Palmas, Canary Islands

 
       

What Life is Like

Just a few thoughts on this first few weeks on board the ship - MV Explorer. I have met some great people. I've made great friends with people my age and with the students. All the students I've met are fascinating and inspirational --- informed and educated global citizens who will be running the world soon- if they are not already. Hooray!

So what is life all about here......... In the beginning and even now, for me, it was like being in kindergarten and in some ways it still is: starting first with meeting all new people and trying to remember their names, then it was the challenge of adapting to shipboard life--the rolling of the sea, the different levels of the decks, and the multiple locations of the classrooms, working to mitigate the chill in my cabin, finding a pubic toilet, filling out forms, getting the schedules strait, learning how to transition into A and B days instead of the 7 traditional days with  normal 7day weeks, then remembering what is A and B day...... and finally,  finding the dining room, the union and the lounge. All the different decks are not solid levels so discovering how to get from aft to stern and then come back again to another spot is a challenge.....wow.  Still after two weeks, I forget which deck has the classroom I need to get to and whether it is accessed by the aft or stern stairway.

I set the alarm for 6 but often I am too tired to get up just then. I try to get out of the cabin by 7 and have some coffee, bran cereal and yogurt to start the day. After that I have a class on A days. Usually I am on the right floor --6-- after breakfast so I trundle over to Classroom 3 and sit down for an hour and one half. After that I either have Global Studies in the Union or an hour break and then another class. By lunch I have completed the classroom part of my day. B days are similar. No one ever knows what day of the week it is, or the date--- except the Captain who writes a message every day and posts it.

Around noon I head back to the cafeteria and have a salad and water or iced tea. Then, after lunch I usually have to work on my ongoing computer and Internet issues and I try to get to my emails and do some work on my blog. Although I have addressed some of these issues with help, not having Microsoft Office has been a major problem. Many of my class assignments include power point presentations held on the SAS Intranet which for me are inaccessible  as the SAS Intranet was built to connect to Microsoft Office software systems.The ship is attempting to be paperless. So I am a bit behind on resources. Mostly, I do my readings/homework after dinner (which is about the same as lunch food-wise) or don’t get to it at all. There is usually a program or discussion after dinner in the Union at 8PM.

It seems like everyone is always in catch-up. And today I had a test in one of my art history classes---  yes, I took it..... but was not very well prepared. While the ship carries a cell tower, its Internet service goes on and off all the time. There is so much use I was told it is overloaded. But sometimes we are just out of touch- surely that was true crossing the Atlantic. So to complete my email message and/or even view my Inbox or to post anything on my blog is a challenge. I am constantly logged off before I can enter or logged out in mid- sentence. When this happens I lose the whole email......so it is a long process just to get one off. It's hard as well just to get on to view incoming messages. And, a real bother, I have no spell check on the SAS email program.

We are about to reach Ghana in a day or two. Everyone has begun malaria medications and we have  the Deet ready.

I am excited to be going to the Ashanti country to see some of the mountain craftsman and their wonderful work.  I will be in touch after this adventure.  

Ghana

Women by road

We are back on board on our way Cape Town having refueled in Las Palmas and made landfall in Tema, Ghana. And as I begin to write this we are just crossing the equator and the Captain came on the loudspeakers to say there might be a bump from King Neptune when we reach 0 degrees latitude. Ah, there it is! 

There is an initiation into a special club for those who have crossed the equator by sea that pays tribute to Neptune by a plunge into the water and the kissing of a fish. Many on board are members---they’re called Shellbacks.

What a fascinating time discovering Ghana. 

The first time I have truly been immersed in a third world country although they maintain they’ve jumped up to second world, it was a shock in the beginning. We had been prepared for the visit with historical, political, social, and geographic presentations but the real shock of the third world was immediate as we docked in Tema, a deep sea container port developed by Nkrumah in the 60‘s.

It is massive and just outside the entry point to the harbor a large number of trawler and freighters endlessly await entry. At first sight, it looks like a large group of destroyers readying for some attack. In reality many are freighters waiting for cargo and others are trawlers preparing fish they’ve caught to take home to Japan and other countries. Ghana has sold off its fishing rights and the waters are depleting fast. 

Once inside the harbor and just as monumental, are thousands of containers stacked in rows 4 to 6 high parked in the area around the dock just waiting to be shipped off around the world.

Coming into the container port ---Tema, Ghana

Under high security again this port and the other one in Morocco must be places where UVA is confident we will be safe for the week long stay. However, this port was even more closed off --- like a naval base with security points and armed guards--- and we could not walk to the outside gate as we did in Morocco because the containers were constantly being moved by massive fork lift trucks and other heavy equipment. 

The reality of globalization is evidenced in the massive container activity in this port alone. This is something we will witness everywhere. Wow!

Breakfast, lunch and dinner available amid gridlock

After docking, shuttle buses met us at prearranged times to take us to Accra. What should only be a twenty minute ride to the downtown area, with traffic that seems to be constant, it takes well over an hour and a half. I have never seen so many cars in grid lock and its the same all over the country. While individuals make an average of $750 dollars a year, many have used cars and it seems like too many people have them.

 Unlike Morocco where you see motor bikes and regular bikes, the mode of travel in Ghana is primarily auto as there are no trains and poor bus service. 

Burgeoning populations are Ghana’s major problem and we saw uncontrolled growth in all the urban centers. Groups of very poor migrate to the city continuously from rural areas in hopes of a better life. As a result, Tema, first envisioned as a well planned commercial community connecting a deep sea port to Accra, the capital, is instead a teaming suburb of slums for the very, very poor. This is a major problem all over Sub-Saharan Africa.

Issues of globalization vs. environmental sustainability were before us at every new look as was the poverty.

At once struck by the horrific poverty and stories of the slave trade, we were encouraged by the forgiveness, resilience, happiness, and hope of these beautiful, colorful people. Ghana's great hope for a good life in the future will require enormous infrastructure development and technological change to manage a growing population and create the possibility for return on her rich resources. 

What seem like gigantic hurdles are issues of social justice, the environment and how to survive enormous growth and urbanization .... and, clearly, these issues are beyond immediate solution.

Leader of the first African nation to declare independence, Kwame Nkrumah began the Pan African Movement and even today is held in the highest reverence. While on a peace making mission to China, his work for Ghana and African independence was cut short by a coup less than ten years after his election as Ghana’s first president. In the midst of the cold war, Nkrumah’s socialistic views worried the American CIA and they felt it was safer to have  Ghana's powerful spokesman out of the limelight. In spite of his exile in the Seychelles for many years, Nkrumah  has remained the Ghanian people's greatest hero. And despite his exile, Ghana’s stable democratic political system first begun by Nkrumah is now in its third iteration of presidency. The ongoing democratic government is now the country’s greatest hope.

Ghana’s religious and cultural climate is as fascinating as its political history. Evangelical Christianity, the Mormons and Tribalism have seemingly come together to create a current everyday context for the sacred that is thoroughly modern and totally Ghanian. Everyone seems so hopeful and as many are now Christian, perhaps they are banking on reaching that mystical very Christian promised land. We saw hundreds of road signs and churches as evidence that Jesus is Savior.

 I imagine the doctrine of the Mormon Church can most easily adapt to this new definition of the sacred because here in sub Saharan Africa polygamy has long been the established way of life. We learned about strong tribal influences in Ghana today and about voodoism in the North where witches are now banned and punished for making judgments and performing crimes of vaginal mutilation. 

The mystery and magic of Ghanian culture is also disturbed by stories and evidence in the slave dungeons along the coast. As center of the slave trade, it was first the Ashanti Tribal leaders who delivered captured rivals to the Dutch and English who subsequently made a commodity of these black warriors and sent them off to the Americas to work in agriculture.
The tragedy of the slave trade was visually reinforced by visits to the horrific slave dungeons.

 It is interesting that the Quakers were the first to call the slave trade immoral in the mid 1700's in Europe.

Ghana’s beautiful textiles are an artistic and cultural highlight and the cities and countryside are enriched by the brilliant color and pattern of  the country's famous kente cloths and batiks.

Certain textile designs served - and serve even today- as symbols of power and prestige. There are designs just woven for the tribal leaders--a king’s and queen’s cloth.

We visited the Ashanti artist’s studios where craftsmen make this colorful cloth and the workrooms where they pound bark and other substances to make the dyes.

It was exciting to see this aspect of the culture-- far from the bustle of the city , a valued craft and culture that is hundreds of years old.


Color Meaning in Kente Cloth

black—maturation, intensified spiritual energy
blue—peacefulness, harmony and love

green—vegetation, planting, harvesting, growth, spiritual renewal
gold—royalty, wealth, high status, glory, spiritual purity
grey—healing and cleansing rituals; associated with ash
maroon—the color of mother earth; associated with healing
pink—assoc. with the female essence of life; a mild, gentle aspect of red
purple—assoc. with feminine aspects of life; usually worn by women
red—political and spiritual moods; bloodshed; sacrificial rites and death.
silver—serenity, purity, joy; assoc. with the moon
white—purification, sanctification rites and festive occasions
yellow—preciousness, royalty, wealth, fertility

Promoting the textile industry, several Minnesotans have started a business called Global Mammas. Based in Accra, they work with Ghanian women to create beautiful designs for clothing and accessories at fair trade prices using these prized textiles. 

Since micro finance doesn’t seem to work as well in Africa, this business was financed by the American women who are now running it and it has developed successfully. They have established a store in Minneapolis and others in American cities.

Increasingly, economists and financial leaders are calling for the empowerment of women as one way to increase the economic growth rates in Africa but helping people is harder than it looks. 

Aid seems to work best when it is focused on health, education and microfinance. And when this aid is focused on women and girls, there is evidence-- statistically and anecdotally-- that it is most effective.

A former SAS student, Adam Braun, has been on ship educating us about how to create an effective NGO. His organization, Pencils of Promise, is a brilliant example of how to make aid enormously effective by increasing boy’s and girl’s opportunities for a good education.

The ship is rocking and rolling as we head south toward Cape Town. We are far from the coast as the worry of pirates is forcing us to be extra careful. In any case, the rough, cool waters of the Cape of Good Hope seem to be blowing at us and the seas are up. I will try to get to you again after CapeTown.

Cape Town

Coming into CapeTown, with a view of the World Cup stadium and Devil's Peak

I have been troubled by what I have been exposed to in the last month...  realities about globalization unfolding in technicolor and causing me to wring my hands and nash my teeth ---multinationals literally running the world with no constraints; capitalism and greed - the new religion; racial and gender inequality; the growing distance between enormous wealth and abject poverty; the absence of available heath care for most people; and the fact we are on a threshold with no turnaround regarding environmental sustainability. My new awareness has been really borne out of the harsh realities in Morocco and Ghana and now here in South Africa.

Street Art in the Townships

 

As often is the case, what you see very suddenly and clearly away from home brings a new reality into sharp focus for the very same problems on your doorstep.

The interesting thing in Morocco, Ghana and now here, especially, in the Townships in Cape Town is that among the everyday people there is a sensitivity, intelligence and, yes, some fatalism about the whole picture: the real and the nasty, the good and the bad, the hope and the despair. They are dealing with these issues frontally -- out in the open-- as hard as it is to witness. This is courageous and it's hopeful.

Luckily Black Africa has been nurtured by some great leaders- peacemakers and good men. Gandhi stayed in South Africa preparing himself for his work for freedom in India. Kwame Nkrumah was a peacemaker and freedom fighter for Ghana’s independence. Nelson Mandela was elected South Africa’s first president and led the country with his ANC party out of apartheid. But these men are mostly memory today and what they began has a long way to go before final realization of the dream. Nevertheless, the memory of their fight for social justice and human rights --freedom for Africa-- is tight in the guts of these people, an enduring and inspiring legacy.

For Africa, America and the world, this is a hard time. Cape Town has about 40% unemployment among its Black and Colored population and many are living in the Townships---still segregated and still living in abject poverty with an annual income of under approx $1000. Today only 7% of the South African population pay taxes and 80% of the population is black. 

The economic dominance of the white minority is staggering and problematic. And I do not believe the gulf between the whites and the blacks in Cape Town can be justified by thinking the blacks still live a third world life with all their relatives living under the same roof together and eating from the same pot of food....as one white Cape Towner explained and saying: "they just don’t need higher annual incomes with their third world way of living.”   But the truth remains that the white population pays the taxes that help to support those living in the Townships and has done so for the last 17 years. With the economy in recession, people are frustrated.   

The greed of colonialism, the rape of resources, the slave trade, apartheid, abject poverty, pestilence of aids, terrorizing corruption, never knowing personal or political freedom and not having the chance to protect the richness and beauty of the earth because survival is first -- this  is what we’ve been witnessing in the lives and stories of black people in Sub - Saharan Africa.

Cape Town’s Townships are the special suburbs created just for the blacks and coloreds by the apartheid laws. Some are 15 miles from the downtown and the industry where their displaced residents might have been working at a job. Their subsistence structures are made of steel or concrete and freely supplied by the government as these people were displaced, are isolated and still are segregated. 

Reference the 6th District in Cape Town to learn more about the displacement.

A store in The Township

Housing in theTownships

Hopeful in theTownship

Last night we were invited to hear jazz in the Township homes of a few of Cape Town’s top black musicians. It was an unforgettable experience.

These wonderful black musicians hosted a few of us in their simple huts. All night they sang and played instruments, some of their own making. I will tell you about the beauty and musicality of these gorgeous instruments another time, but the resilience, creativity and incredible beauty and soul of the music that flowed out of these men and women was beyond inspiration. In the simplest of structures---with the simplest drums and handmade wooden bows and flutes these men and women  made us move and clap and sway with rhythm and joy. 

Bobby Macfarran would have died and gone to heaven listening to this fabulous improvisational jazz and tribal song.

 

We are going to the Khayelitsha Township tomorrow and then to the Cape of Good Hope. The weather has been glorious. I will report more after Bishop Desmond Tutu’s visit. 

No problem drinking the water and having salads, this is a very beautiful, clean city. 
I understand why the Dutch never wanted to go home.