Journal of a Nomad Through Vasteland (2)

August 4th

Today we climbed on the Amphitheater in the Drakensen Mountains, to Tugela Falls.

View from our hotel of the Amphitheater from our hotel.

 We left the hotel (and Maria, who is not a fan of heights) at 7:30 am, drove for 2 hours and arrived in the park at a height of 2500 m (8200 feet). I asked the guide why there are so many burned fields. He said that he doesn’t know, but there are some possibilities: one from smokers negligence, as they throw the stubs off the window; two as a way of renewing the land; three because it is winter and dry, good conditions to have a fire; four when the police is pursuing some drug dealers, they know they are there but can’t catch them. What? It seems like a sci-fi scenario, but it could be true! 

We have to reach just half way.

From the parking lot we walked in line, behind our guide, steady, very slowly, toward our goal. Ioan got some wheezing, the altitude didn’t help.

The parking lot is that little white dot on the trail.

 I was always last, it gave me the freedom to stop whenever I felt like it, and I did stop. I’m like a rusted machine, start slowly, but once I’m going, I’m good. 

The last part to climb was the most difficult, an almost vertical gulch. There was a little girl who was aloof, teetering, her forces melting with every step (she made it to the end, with no complaint). But the view from the top was more than rewarding. We were on one end of the Amphitheater at 3200 m, we could see almost the whole arch. 

We had a lunch break, white neck ravens keeping us company.

 We walked toward Tugela Falls, seeing in the distance tourists tents and taking pictures of the flowers. 

We met the stream, frozen on the sides, dripping on the side of the cliff.

Ileana is trying to save a tadpole.

From here is the way back, a calm, flat walk, toward the back of the mountain. Remember that we climbed up 700 m? Now we had to climb down part of them, on metal stairs, with no equipment (we could ask to be roped if we wanted). There are actually two stairs, one chain like, that is moving when you are on it, the other fixed in the stone, but with not much toe space. 

The first flight of stairs was OK, only 18 m (60ft) we landed on a small flat space. We had to wait for the whole group to gather (my height fear caught up too), and then proceed, one by one, on the second stair of 25 m (82 ft). Mihai goes first, so he could film us, then the children, and I wonder what kind of parent I am, how could I do this to my children? I tell myself that they know already how to do it, Tree Top, Tsingy... they had HARNESSES! screams the panicked voice in my head. I don’t have much time to quarrel with myself, it’s my turn to climb down and I do it praying all the time, concentrating on the words, and moving my limbs one by one: right foot down one rung, left hand down one rung, then left foot down, on the same level with the right one, right hand down. I feel the wind, I know that the stair winds following the rock, I hear Mihai’s voice, telling me that I still have 25 steps, Ioan encouraging me, I block one thought of looking down to see, just praying: “ O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” And then is done, from down there it doesn’t seem so perilous as it looked in the beginning.

I hurt my right knee going down, I stepped in an awkward angle and I had to be careful and protect it all the way. I’m not young anymore!

The drive back was not interesting, Ioan tried to sleep but he couldn’t because of the loud music. Maria had a wonderful day, spent it all in bed, writing and working on the camp presentation. She complained that we were deaf, talking too loud and asking her to repeat everything. While cooking the dinner, I talked with an Irishman who spoke Gaelic and English was his second language, so he was exercising it.

We go to bed early, tomorrow we have another long day!

August 5th

Today we went to Lesotho! Our 21st country! We don’t have a stamp to prove it, but we have the exit and entrance on the Monantsa customs from South Africa.

Our hotel.

Adrian was our guide and we were on for a ride. We had to drive on the same road as yesterday but today we had explanations. About the dam that has five walls, and you can windsurf on it. Or about the vultures’ restaurant, a hill on which are left carcasses, a gift from farmers, to help raise the numbers of two species of vultures. Or about the people who were forced to move here in the Apartheid era, in rows of identical houses and now they are sporting solar heating equipment (that tells you that they are doing well). He talks and the music is a background. Then, like a DJ, he proudly announces that we are going to listen to the South African Anthem, the real one, not with English and Afrikaans. He turns the volume up and we hear:

Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika...  (ko-see-see-keh-lell-ee-Africa)

Tears sprang into my eyes as I remembered Mandela’s book and scenes from the movie Invictus. He sings along and for a while he lives in the song. Then he remembers how it was when he grew up, a Brit in Johannesburg, going to a white school, where he was forced to learn Afrikaans and then into the compulsory army service for two years. He left, tried his luck in other countries, returned and as he was driving through Cape Town area, he saw people in the streets singing and dancing and being happy “Madiba is free!”. Years later his daughter attended his old school, one of the few white students along with blacks and colored. She knows, but she doesn’t understand what he lived through. “Yes, we have crime, and violence, and all that, but we have freedom!” He is now a proud white South African and he sang along with a catchy tune:

Hey Mr. Mandela, you’re one hell of a fella’

I wanna be like you, I wanna do what you do!

Adrian.

By this time we were at the border, got through the formalities, back in the car and ready for the new history lesson, the one on Lesotho. They used to have a shack that served as a customs building, but one year it was damaged, and being the third poorest country in the world, they didn’t renew it. We were driving on a new road (this contradicted what we’re being told), actually in construction and then it ended in a dirt and rock type of thing. Because it was very steep, we were driving slowly, and we were passed by a flock of sheep, the shepherd riding on a colorful horse. These people take very good care of their animals.

Our first stop: the school. Because it was Sunday, there was no one at the school, just a teacher who came especially to welcome us. He told us that years before they had one round hut in which they were doing school. Along came some Irishmen who pooled resources and built a bigger and better, rectangular school. This one became smaller as children poured in from the neighboring hills, so now they have a second building, built with our hotel’s help (part of the money paid for this trip will go to the school). They are hoping that in time they will build a secondary school, so the children will not have to live in a boarding school in a town many miles away. 

We walked through the village toward the hills. 

A barefoot boy came running, pushing a wheeled stick made from a can and making engine noises. He joined us for a while, then returned to his route. 

Later, a girl came and she walked all the way with us. She had several layers of dust on her feet, her shirt and dress were dirty, but she was happy. 

After climbing, we stopped at a stone wall on which we could barely distinguish rock painting. 

This used to be a San people’s territory and through paintings they told each other which way is the water, where they can find good game and so on. Unfortunately, there are just a few San people now (pushed by other people and integrated in new societies) who can’t interpret them, and many paintings are not protected (in South Africa they are), disappearing under the weather’s erosion or human ignorance defacing. 

He told us the history of the Basotho people, how a good man gave shelter to anyone who asked and didn’t want to fight. His name was Moshoeshoe and when pressures came from the Zulus (king Shaka extended his territory), from the voortrekers (the pioneers, white dutch settlers who moved from the Cape Town area because they didn’t like the British rule and their slaves) he moved his people to an easily defendable plateau, in Bathu-Bathu. He asked for the protectorate of the British, and having it, insured the liberty of his kingdom. Someone gave him a blanket as a gift, and he wore it like a cape, fastened over one shoulder. The Basotho people are still doing this. I don’t think there are many changes besides electricity and plastic objects in his people’s life since his time (1870).

After lunch, we made a stop at one of the houses, that had a white flag (it means they are selling beer). We were invited inside, seated on a bench, offered a plastic container filled with beer (the same kind as in Shakaland). 

An elder woman, leaning on a stick came inside and Ioan offered her his seat. She raised her hands, and still holding her stick, started dancing. I took a picture of a man who I think had a little too much. 

A young man joined our group and talked with each of us in a perfect English. He told us that their houses are round, so the ancestors could help them, that’s what they know, they don't recognize the new, rectangular houses. That school is far away and it costs a lot of money, that he doesn’t have. That is important to learn, so everybody would have a better life. He was our interpreter from the Basotho language to English when we visited the sangoma, the witch doctor. Because we were so many, and we actually didn’t pay for a consultation, he received us in his house (and not his office, which is a separate hut). We were seated some on benches, some on mattresses, he stayed all the time kneeled on the hard ground, with his head down and eyes moving from one to another.

 This is how he was honoring his ancestors, by honoring us. He was dressed with a red T-shirt and a red straight, knee length skirt with white beads, with necklaces of white beads and silver bells and decorations of baboon hand, a paw of a powerful lizard, goat horns and so on. They each have their signification (to become a sangoma, he had to sacrifice a goat; the bells are to make sounds when he is dancing at the sangoma conference with his fellows—twice a month) and they where dictated by his ancestors in his dreams. 

What Adrian told us, and the sangoma said in his own language, translated by the young man, was that not anyone can become a witch doctor. He was chosen by his ancestors, who send him dreams, and things happen to him, not letting him have a normal life. When people come to him, sometimes he already knows what ails them, because he dreamt them and gives them the treatment dictated by his ancestors. Sometimes he has no idea and has to wait for the recipe to be sent. He is paid in nature, so many eggs, or a chicken, or rice. People don’t have money here. I asked what makes him a better sangoma than others? The interpretation of the dreams.

People in Africa believe in good spirits and bad ones, and many times their first stop when something ails them is at a sangoma (the correct term, witch doctor being reserved for the ones who are working with black magic). Fortunately, they work with the western doctors, helping with vaccination, and sending all the surgical cases and birth to the hospitals.

After this visit, we make another one, to the teacher’s house where we eat with our hands from one dish pap (a white corn polenta) and a green dish (something like kale or spinach). The men drink beer made and canned in Lesotho.

The interior of the teacher's house.

 A gust of wind threatens to uplift the undulated metal sheets that await to be put on the roof of the teacher’s new house, that he is building it by himself, so more boulders are piled on them. Outside women, dressed in blue skirts and starched white blouses were going to the Zionist Church. This is a whole day service, and the priest, noticing us, invited us inside. It was very short and everybody got outside, where the priest blessed some bottles of water and distributed them.

For us it was the end of our Lesotho trip. Storm pushing us from behind, we piled in the car and drove toward South Africa. 

We arrived tired and half deaf, singing Mr. Mandela, we went to the restaurant where we celebrated beforehand my birthday (the food was not good, half stayed on the plates, but I didn’t have to cook it) and talked with two Germans and a Frenchman. And I also received part of my gifts, I talked with our parents. I miss my family.

I’ll have to write Ileana an email thanking for her gift, because these two wonderful days were possible because of her.

Journal of a nomad through Vasteland

July 22nd

Hello South Africa! 

We arrived last night, rented a car, drove to an apartment that had heat.  It is inside an enclosure that has a wall with glass on top of it and on the gate it is written Armed Response. All the buildings have the same gated system, with inter phone, on which the right of admission is reserved. All these things make me feel like I am not safe outside. And I am anxious, because of what I read in Mandela’s book “Long Road to Freedom” and of my experience of social unrest, when the communist rule in Romania was overthrown. Different arguments arise in my mind “The things happened almost twenty years ago, they had all the time to calm down!” “Not when you grow up in apartheid, in a segregated society!” “You are being paranoid and judging. Just wait and see.”

This morning we left for Cradle of Humankind, a World Heritage Monument, drove around, we lost our way. There it was interesting, an exhibition about our scientific ancestors with life size replicas, telling us how they hunted, what tools and so on.



 In this area they found many specimens of Australopithecus Africanus (there are other kinds) and some of them are still excavating. It was different from other museums because of the focus on how we evolved, presenting along the way our mistakes too, in the past and in the present.(the extermination of different species, garbage that takes ages to reintegrate in nature, the high consume of water). And it asked questions.





 We saw some fossils and before leaving we saw Nelson Mandela’s handprints and took turns trying them.

We drove toward Kruger on very good highways. From time to time I saw signs: Hijack Area, do not stop. The vegetation is burned, the ground is black and the air has smoke. Why?  People walk on the side of the highway, or cross it. There are holes in the fence along the highway, cars stop to take or drop off people, they hitchhike. It is like they didn’t get used to the highway system.

We stop for groceries.

July 23-28

Kruger Park again. It feels so good to be inside, to feel safe.

 We move around different camps, looking at their small museums about animals, drive for hours, looking at the animals. 

The differences between the white (on the right) and the black (on the left) rhino. Their horns could reach 1.5 and 1.3 m at the end of their lifespan.

We bought a book with maps and it has pictures of the many animals and birds (so many!). We’re ticking them as we see them (the one that spotted it has the honor). 

Klipspringer, a very small antelope, it stands on the tip of its toes.

Lilac breasted roller

The cleaning crew

I don't remember it's name

One day we saw lions, two in one area and four in another. They already had their meal, sitting with their paws in the air and just looking mildly interested at the impalas trying to approach the waterhole. 

The impala is on the right and the lionesses on the left, watching each other over the waterhole.

On a different day we took a secondary road but it was blocked by a buffalo herd that was crossing the street. The males confronted us, the females postured themselves in front of their calves then, seeing that we are not moving, continued to graze. We were running late and realized that we risk having the gates of the camp closed on us waiting for the buffaloes, so we turn back. A bull giraffe is teaching a little one to fight in the middle of the road. He charges us when we try to approach. Eventually we honk, and that scares them away (it is against the rules). In our rush we almost pass a leopard. We follow him for 12 minutes, until we can’t see him anymore.



 A mile before the camp we see a white rhinoceros. The next day we won’t see any major animal, just impalas, zebras, elephants and birds. Talking about birds, there are people here who have huge lenses, as big as a violin (I think they need a special luggage for it). They make me feel inadequate. But that small voice in my head answers that they are totally unprepared for a trip around the world, so there!

Fish eagles, calling right before flying.

On the last day we started a line! Every time we saw a car stopped we would slow down to see what they are looking at. If the animal stayed long enough and it was of a major interest (like lion, leopard) we would find a spot to have a better look. And others would do the same thing, making a jam. This time we were the first to spot a cheetah and gazed at it for 5 minutes all by ourselves. 

My favorite feline, cheetah.

Then another car came, and another one, then a whole morning tour bus, but we had the best view! The cheetah lied on one side and slept with his head up, yawning from time to time. He ignored us, then he decided to lye down and we couldn’t see it from the grass. We left, visited something else, and after an hour we returned. He was still there, and the cars, but we really had to leave.

At the backpackers hotel where we’re sleeping, Alicia speaks Afrikaans, a language derived from Old Dutch and she taught me how to say Hello— Goee dag (hue-eh dah), Thank you—Dankie (done-key) and Good bye— Totsiens (taught-tsins).

We finally finish the malaria prevention! For more then 40 days we took doxycycline two times a day. 

July 29- Aug 2

We drive through villages and towns with a normal aspect, no walls with glass on them. The most prominent building is the Funeral Home. We pass plantations of bananas, bagged already in blue sacks (to protect them from baboons). 



Also evergreens and eucalyptus, for cutting. The plots alternate new plantation, growing, waiting to be cut, already cut. 

We’re in St. Lucia, a small town on the East Coast. We rent an apartment with three bedrooms and watch the Olympic Games. We cheer for every Romanian or US contestant, but in the same time we are happy for the Australian victory, or for the South African one or for every country that we visited. We spend some time catching up with the blog, and in general with pictures, back-up. The girls are working for our trip presentation at the camp.

We visit the wetlands and see some hippopotamuses laying in the sand, the sea rolling waves behind them.



 We go to Cape Vidal where we find a community of people, fishing. This is not my sport and I am trying to understand it. There are at least a fifty men, 30 boys and two women on a windy and chilly shore, totally absorbed by their activity. They must like it!

Aug 3rd

Shakaland was the set where they filmed in 1984 a series about Shaka, one of the great Zulu kings. The movie had a great impact and they transformed the place in a touristic attraction. We watch a very shortened version of the movie, only 12 minutes (instead of 9 hours) in which we found out that he was not welcomed in his father’s house, joined a rival tribe, advanced in rank and at the death of his father he went to claim the throne. He invented a new weapon, a cross between a short spear and a sword, very good at slain people! He trained his people to fight as a group, reinventing Roman methods. He even defeated the British army, he was that good (they got him eventually, his weapon was no match against bullets).

We got to move around, guided by Muso. He asked us where are we coming from. Romania. What is the main language there? Romanian. I could laugh at his question, but in South Africa there are 11 official languages. He explained many things about customs of old times, how they are trying to keep their culture alive through the new ones and I wonder what chances they have. 

Musa explaining the compound.

To marry, a man has to pay 11 cows (22 if she is a princess, 16 if she’s the daughter of the chief, 8 if she was already married once and had a child). He sends a love letter, made of beads.



 If she accepts him, she will give him a white bead necklace. If she doesn’t, she sends back a beaded letter with black in it. He can have more wives if he chooses so, but he has to give them their own house and sometimes their own kitchen. He doesn’t live with them, but in his hut. He visits his wives. The children start helping around since they start walking and when they are 16 years old, they move in yet another hut, with older brothers or sisters (who leave the compound only if they get married). In the middle of the compound there is the cattle ground with a lone pole (for milking the cows) and a dung hidden underground cellar, for food storage (so the enemies could not poison the food). The wife has to wear a red circular hat all the time, she can’t take it of when she sleeps, so she rests her head on a wooden little bench (these hard things to sleep on I found them at the Egyptians, Chinese... I wonder if it’s healthier or just another method of insuring short sleep and long working hours?) She also has to wear a pleated skirt, made from cow leather, that is heavy, so she can’t run away. Her life is revolving around her house. She can’t go to fetch water from the river, with that hat on, so she sends her daughter. 

The water jug has that kind of mouth to keep the water in.

She cooks, washes, sews, makes pots out of clay, gives birth to children and takes care of them. The man makes shields out of hides, learns to fight and to hunt.

We move from one station to another, and I count 20 people who bring this village to life, here making a pot, there making a shield. We are offered in a gourd local beer, a fermented sorghum and maize drink. It had a brownish purplish color, a pungent smell, and a slightly alcoholic and sour taste. 

After washing the sieve (that brown braided thing) with water, the beer is sieved and then served from the right bowl. 

We were given a break to buy some of the beaded jewelry, but I chose to talk with Musa and ask him how to say Hello—Sawubona (sah-woo-bone-ah). The Thank you is different if it is just one person Ngiyabonga (hard sound ge-ah-bone-gah) or many Siyabonga (see-ah-bone-gah). Saying Good bye depends on if your leaving you say: “Stay well” Salakahle (sah-lah-kah-leh) or if someone else is leaving you say: “Go well” Hambakahle (hum-bah-kah-leh).

 After the break we went into the Grandfather’s House, (which is the most important house in the compound, because they gather there for the worshiping of their ancestors or for meetings) to see some dancing. Musa made a sign showing us to follow the warriors who came singing and entered the hut, but we told him “Men first” sign that we payed attention to his explanations. He laughed and entered first, followed by all the men in our party, who set themselves on the right side, and after that we, the women, entered and sat ourselves on the left. The king occupied his throne, and three wives sat around him, some men went at the higher level, where they started beating huge drums, while others gathered and danced.



 The dance followed the drums, with vigorous movements of the body, and they all knew which way to turn and especially when, but what remained with me was a powerful pawing of the air with their right foot. It seemed very important to stomp that foot from as high as possible and after three of these they would fall backwards on all four, like they have stumbled on something more powerful and frightening. The women danced too, in the same style, and all sang and clapped and were full of energy. I didn’t have time to ask if there was a ranking in the way they were wearing the skins or in the decoration of their body. After that it was a collection and the tour ended with us at the dinner place.

It was a buffet style with cold meat and salad for appetizers, and traditional hot food. While I was serving myself one spoon from each, the woman told me in a low voice: “Did you see that man? He is the manager of this place. He asked where is mama Dina, because he didn’t see her, and she is gone and cold for six months now!” I presume she was unhappy with this manager who seemed to know his people, but didn’t work close enough with them. The food was good, some of them we have them in Romania, but with different spices. And for dessert they had crumbled apple pie with warm custard and fresh whipped cream! Mmmmm.

For the next three nights we’ll all sleep in the same room at the Backpackers and we have the possibility of self catering. We also have an electric heater, it is cold in the night time, as we are in the mountains.