From Silicon Valley to Swaziland by Rick & Wendy Walleigh (read aloud txt) 📖

seats, two young men came up to us and said that they appreciated our dressing traditionally, but that we hadn’t gotten the outfits quite right. They would help us. I had the most serious problem. Although my top wrap covered the correct shoulder, I was using safety pins, which is taboo. The young men showed me how to knot the cloth so that it was properly held in place without pins. We thanked them, took some pictures, and then went on to our seats.

After the arrival of the queen mother and then the king, the actual events began, which weren’t spectacular. It was not like the closing ceremonies at the Olympics. It was just forty thousand half-naked young women, dressed in costume, divided into local groups, parading in formation around the stadium and then stopping to dance in front of the king. In recent years, the ceremony had attracted more very young girls, and the first group in the parade was comprised of toddlers with their chaperones trying to keep them in order. The second group was comprised of members of the royal family. After that, a knowledgeable Swazi citizen could probably tell the groups apart based on their home towns, but they began to all look the same to me. After a few thousand pairs of naked breasts, the novelty wears off. It was a unique cultural event, and I’m very glad I attended, but I won’t need to go back again right away. Mkhululi hadn’t been in ten years.

Later, when we discussed our experience with our friends and colleagues, we heard a surprising range of opinions on the Reed Dance festivities. Most of the Swazi men and some of the women thought that it was an important part of Swazi tradition and should be preserved. However, most of the women we knew (educated and city-dwelling) thought that it was demeaning to women and was just one example of how the Swazi culture and society were still male-dominated and oppressive to women. Mkhululi said his daughter would definitely participate as soon as she was older, but Katy said that wasn’t going to happen. It reflected the general Swaziland condition, a small country with strong and proud traditions (including a powerful king) confronting the modern world.

We didn’t stay to see all of the sections of young women parade in front of the king or the singing that followed. As we were leaving, a fashionable, attractive woman asked us to pose for a picture. An adolescent, who might have been her daughter, joined us in the photo. We thought nothing of it until we heard later that it was in the local newspaper. The caption under our picture congratulated whoever had helped the tourists to dress so authentically.

On Tuesday, we continued our short vacation and went to Cape Town. Any flight out of Swaziland is expensive, so we drove the four-plus hours to the Johannesburg airport to save over $600. We later learned that the shortest route on the map is not the shortest route in time; we saw a lot of small towns along our drive. We also saw the settlements (shantytowns/slums) near the Johannesburg and later the Cape Town airports. These were the remains of apartheid when black Africans were forced to live in “townships” on the outskirts of major cities. When apartheid went away, the residents of these townships could legally move elsewhere. However, that didn’t mean that they could afford to move elsewhere, so these communities remain. Evidently, they were slowly being upgraded with sewers, running water, and electricity; but this was, of course, very expensive for the government and was taking a long time. Today, the living conditions in the former townships remain a source of terrible frustration for millions of South Africans.

Within these communities, each individual dwelling (politically correct euphemism for shack, hovel, etc.) may be no worse than those in the poor communities in Swaziland, but the impression is very different. In these settlements, there are thousands and thousands of tiny makeshift dwellings packed tightly together housing hundreds of thousands of people. Some of the South African settlements are larger than the largest cities in Swaziland, and several together would contain more than Swaziland’s total population. Today, some of these former townships offer tours and overnight stays, but we had seen enough from a distance. Even from a distance, it makes a visceral impression that you don’t easily forget. I was angry at the former apartheid government and its supporters who had forced the residents into these conditions, and I tried not to despair about how difficult it will be to get everyone out of these settlements. I frequently had to remind myself that major change comes step by step and that lots of little steps add up over time.

After an uneventful flight, we drove to our Cape Town hotel and only got slightly lost along the way. Our hotel was in a community called Bantry Bay and, as might be expected, had a very nice ocean view. This part of the coast, near the tip of the continent, is a mixture of cliffs and small beaches. Our hotel was perched on a steep slope that rises up to Lion’s Head, one of the distinctive mountains surrounding Cape Town. After unpacking, we went out for dinner along the Victoria and Albert Wharf, a beautifully developed, modern, tourist, and shopping area.

Cape Town is called the mother city of South Africa because it was the original European settlement. It is also southern Africa’s most attractive and cosmopolitan city. With its wonderful geography, some people think it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Many people will also tell you that it feels much more like Europe than Africa. One of the reasons for this is that in Cape Town, “Africans” are not the majority, and the population is much more racially diverse than other African cities. However, I need to explain this statement and the quotes around Africans. It has to do with approaches to racial classification and previous discrimination.

Historically in the United States, anyone with any African ancestors was referred to as colored, Negro, black, or African-American with all of these terms being synonymous but acceptable in different eras. Even people who had mostly white ancestors were categorized (and often discriminated against) using one of these terms. The rules of racial discrimination were different in South Africa. Instead of having basically two racial groups, black and white, South Africa has historically had three: white, black or African, and a third group called colored. The whites were pure white; the Africans were pure black; and the coloreds comprised everyone in between, including people of Asian as well as mixed-race background. Because of the history of the various races that came or were forcibly brought to Cape Town, and because of a generally more liberal populace, Cape Town has a high percentage colored population. In Cape Town, coloreds, not “Africans” comprise the majority. Cape Town’s cultural diversity plus the long history make it a very interesting city. For example, one of the sights we visited was the Jewish museum. This modern facility employs a wide variety of exhibits and media to chronicle the history of the Jews in South Africa, including their contributions to the community and the economy and their opposition to apartheid. In fact, it was a Jewish firm that gave Nelson Mandela his first job as a lawyer.

In addition to Cape Town’s historical, cultural, and topographical sights, e.g., Table Mountain, there is also the Cape Peninsula to visit. This is the peninsula that goes from the city of Cape Town down to the Cape of Good Hope. Cape Town has many similarities with San Francisco, e.g., water on three sides, hills/mountains, cool weather, and fog. The Cape Peninsula has a lot of similarities with the Monterey and Big Sur areas and makes for a nice oceans-hugging drive. If you start down the peninsula on the west, you’re driving along the Atlantic, and if you come back up on the east, you’re driving along the Indian Ocean. Even though the Cape of Good Hope is not really the most southern point in Africa, it is the most southwestern point and still considered the dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Right next to the Cape of Good Hope is Cape Point, a little farther south but not as far west. At Cape Point, you can walk or ride a funicular up to the top of the point for a great view. When we arrived, we were told that the funicular was closed for maintenance, and we would have to walk. Overhearing some other tourists, we quickly realized that there was no maintenance going on. The funicular was closed because it was being held for Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, who was visiting South Africa. As we neared the end of our climb up the walkway to the top, we saw the cavalcade of flashing lights coming down the road to Cape Point. Soon after, Vladimir Putin emerged from the top of the funicular, surrounded by guards and attendants. He was the shortest person in the group, but also the most intimidating. His steely visage was complemented by his wardrobe and muscular physique. He was dressed in a dark sport jacket and slacks with a black turtleneck that gave him the ominous look of a mafia don. Although he is short, you wouldn’t want to pick a fight with him. He has the build of a martial arts instructor and probably the skill as well. He looked briefly at the view, got back into the funicular with his entourage, and quickly the cavalcade left. We walked back down to our car and drove back up the east side of the cape, visiting a colony of “jackass” penguins along the way. Although now properly called African penguins, their braying sound makes it obvious how they got their name.