cliff notes

To CREW, from Space

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:51:00 +0000

The Pan-African Market

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Wed, 19 May 2010 23:51:00 +0000

Still processing some stuff from Cape Town.

Just realized I hadn't put these up yet.

Bowls made out of recycled paper

And telephone wire.

Collages from/of the townships.

A Story about the Cape Town Zoo

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Fri, 14 May 2010 15:13:00 +0000

Cast of Characters:

Nick Shepherd

professor at the Center for African Studies, University of Cape Town

XXXX
a gardner who maintains the zoo grounds

XXXX
a student at UCT

Ronald and Richard Gere
squatters who live in the Lion's cage

The City Council of Cape Town,
whose intentions are documented in the The Groote Schuur Zoo Site Redevelopment Proposal

[NOT PICTURED]

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Act 1: Animals and People

[1.23] This is an old zoo. What we can do is imagine where the animals used to be. This looks like a funny shaped concrete swimming pool; there used to be water in here and crocodiles.

[3.00] Come and look very carefully -- on the ground, all around -- and tell me if you can see something that looks like an animal. You see his eye, his teeth, and his paws and there’s his curly tail and his ferocious claws. These are pictures of lions.

[12.30] Zoos are metaphoric landscapes. They often materialize a set of complex ideas around nature and culture and wildness and domesticity. This zoo told a little evolutionary tale from crocodiles to hyenas and foxes through to apes and leopards, through to lions. A biogenetic story as you walk through it with lions on the top.

When they closed to zoo in the 1980s people started living in the cages because there was a big problem with housing. And what did they do? They didn’t say: “oh we’re so pleased that these people have some kind of a home.” Instead they put these bricks in so that no one could live there.

Look carefully at the bricks, some of them have been patched up. People wanted to live here and they would made a hole through the bricks. But then someone else would come and find out that people were living there and brick it up again…and then someone would bash a hole again…and then someone would brick it up again.

A bit of a crazy thing…

[3.06] It’s a nice place to stay here…to rest, to do your things.

[0.33] I like it, because I’m sleeping at night here, and it’s keeping me safe from all the wrongdoings and from all my enemies. I don’t know who is my enemies but there are plenty people who are chasing after you without you knowing.

This place is a very good place because it keeps me safe. I go out in the morning, I go collecting my scrap. [2.36] If I get some iron, about 250 kg that is the loot, obviously. They pay you two rand per kilo. So multiply 250 times 2 so that is 500 bucks. I’m satisfied with that.

[??? between 0.33 and 1.57] I go to the scrap yard and then I have something to eat. I’m just doing my thing, I’m safe here. I’m just going with the flow, that is what I do. My family stays in Athlone but I’m independent. I don’t want to go to them, because I’m an adult and I’m looking after myself.

[1.57] This is not actual my workplace, I just come here and I rest a little bit. I collect the small things and then I put it together and when it becomes big then I take it with the other stuff and take it to the scrap yards in Woodstock and then I get some money and then I get myself something to eat and some fags you know. I don’t smoke drugs but I drink a beer. And then me and my friend we have a good time. Maybe with a woman as well.

[3.21] Many years ago I did work here with PWD, the Public Works Department. That was in the time of De Klerk, when De Klerk was the state president. This was a zoo for apes and that kind of stuff.

[3.54] There were lions as well.

[4.21] I don’t know where they took the lions.

[23.03] All kinds of people moved into the lion’s den. In the middle of last year a group of students moved in and they used it as an informal exhibition space. The National Parks, which is the administrator, came at the end of last year and cleared everything out.

[0.48] Friends started coming here, because there were seats here at one point. And those seats were the most comfortable seats on campus. They were padded and all.

[1.17] If you want to smoke, you come here. It’s off campus. And if you try and smoke on campus you get busted. We like a few other spots as well: the tree on the other side, the thrown. The thing is…this place is indoors. We used to have a place which we called the eagle’s nest, on the roof of the UCT graduate building. But that is blocked off now.

[2.48] The history of this place is that it is the lion’s cage. We had a theory that they kept slaves in here. Not a lot of people know about it. When we did find out about it, we didn’t find ‘this is dedication to anyone’ or anything like that. It’s just this place.

----

Act 2: "Africanness"

[9.38] The point of this landscape is that it’s an exemplary landscape. It is meant to physically embody a set of big ideas.

[8.50] This zoo is built by Cecil Rhodes, a British imperialist and expansionist who had two countries named after him, and who lived in the late 19^th century. Rhodes refurbished Groote Schuur; he owned all this land and the zoo was his private menagerie project. His idea for the menagerie was that it should contain animals from all over the British Empire.

[21.30] Rhodes was very specific about the fact that the zoo should be open to the public, but to a very particular public: a middle class [white] settlers public. It was to be a place where people would come to promenade on Sunday. He had the animals brought in and he was gifted a lot of them from all over the Empire: peacocks from

India

[10.01] The menagerie was first built in the 1890s under Rhodes and rebuilt in the 1920s…at the same time the university campus was built.

[3 – The Existing Site] The majority of the site is characterized by mixed woodland and open grassland typical of the lower slopes of Table Mountain. The woodland includes mature specimens of both indigenous and exotic trees. On the lower portion of the site are several defunct animal cages and structures which formed the old Groote Schuur Zoo. These buildings are located on several level terraced areas which are divided symmetrically by a tree lines path with paving features of intricate pebble patterns and stone steps leading towards the magnificent stone faced Lion’s Den.

[15.50] The most important thing about the design is the points of prospects and the axes. With the main university site the axis cuts from the flag tower at the University hall down the steps across the rugby field and then to the Summer House and that’s where the design is worked from.

[17.13] The site-of-prospect thing is really important; the idea is that you stand here and you gaze out …and what you’re looking at is Africa. Then you could ask the question: well if that’s African what is this? The idea is that this is not quite Africa. This is a provisional part of Africa.

[33.22] [Outside,] there was nature; there was wild nature and it wasn’t at all relaxing. It was experienced as threatening and awful and for relaxation you certainly wouldn’t go to wild nature. What you wanted to see were visible signs of human interventions, edifices of artificiality and human presence. Because you lived in wild nature and it was horrible!

[18.55] What Rhodes tried to do was to create a hybrid landscape.

[After 10.18] It is meant to be a little bit of all sorts of things. Englishness, the oak trees; a sense of location, the [indigenous] silver trees and the fijnbos; then the stone pines, which stand for southern Mediterranean classicism. Utterly weird, isn’t it?! But that’s the combination they were going for. And the lions are meant to be wild Africa. That’s the local referent. It’s a commentary about imperial power.

[After 18.55] [Rhodes] had this idea that the British empire had run somehow out of steam at the end of the 19^th century and what it need was a little transfusion of wildness, of Africaness.

[17.57] The way I think it work is like this: there was a settlers’ society with the Cape as point of arrival. There was a lot of anxiety as with any settler’s society around notion of place and home, space, landscape, ownership and claim to territory. And there was a very specific set of anxieties around notions of Africanness. What Rhodes did here is to create a landscape like home. A little bit of Europe is created botanically, and through the animals, a biological empire is created as a form of mediated Africa.

[6.09] Do you recognize this? It’s a part of Dutch national history; it’s the outline of the castle inCape Town, a pentagonal star, a 17^th century Dutch fortification plan. The Dutch built these all over the world where they had interests; it’s the symbol of Holland’s empire. You can go to places such as Curacao and see a fort built according to this plan. The way that it works is that it is about fields of fire, so you can catch any enemy in a cross fire.

[7.30] It is interesting because it’s a very local symbol but transnational at the same time. The castle in Cape Town used to be the first permanent building constructed at the Cape. And later it became the apartheid military headquarters.

During the struggle period this was the symbol of apartheid and now it is a tourist attraction.

Act 3: Looking Ahead

[23.40] No one knows what to do with [the zoo]. The university wants to turn it into a parking lot. But it is a bit tricky; because since there are monumental structures, they’re protected.

[1 -- Introduction] The Rhodes Will...provides that a portion of the Groote Schuur Zoo site, in extent approzimately 13 ha...be placed ‘at the disposal of any person to be utilised as a park, open to all members of the public.”

[4 – Development Proposals] The [current] development proposals...aim to conserve the existing man-made and natural landscape whilst encouraging its use by the public.

[4.1 – The Lion’s Den Restaurant] The lion’s den will be converted into a family restaurant with take-away facilities for hikers and visitors to the parkland. This can be achieved by enclosing with glass the existing barred cages behind the stone enclosure, creating an all weather dining area and utilizing the stone structure for additional dining space and kitchens. A wooden deck will extend over a portion of the lion’s enclosure creating a fair-weather dining area with...a magnificent panoramic view of Cape Town. An upgraded access road will provide for physically disabled patrons.

[4.2 – Parking] Parking facilities and toilets will be provided on the converted teraces of the Zoo site. The conversion of the terraces to provide parking will be carried out with a minimum of disturbance to the existing landscape by removing the defunct cages, resurfacing the area with brick paving, and linking the terraces by widening the existing pedestrian ramps. The arrangement...will provide 70 parking bays on the existing terraces with very little disturbance to the established landscape.

[4.6 – Zoo Relics] A suggestion has been made that one or two of the defunct cages be retained as relics of the former zoo. However, these massive cages are in a very poor state of repair, difficult to screen and architecturally without merit. It is therefore recommened that they be demolished, but that the level terraces on which they stand be retained and converted to parking or grassed over to provide a suitable space for future amenity use.

[5 – Development Control and Programme for Approval] A hiererchy of control will ensure that the development and management of the site will always be in keeping with the aims of preserving the present character of the site for future generations, as intended in Rhodes’ Will.

Letter to Mr. Bittman

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:18:00 +0000

Mark Bittman writes a food column for the New York Times called “The Minimalist.”

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May 3, 2010

Dear Mr. Bittman,

I’m writing to you on behalf of my brother Scott, a Peace Corps volunteer in Northern Mozambique in desperate need of some culinary foreign aid.

I just returned home from visiting him in Africa, where he gave me a letter addressed to you. He wanted to send it to you himself, but the Mozambican postal service is not exactly what you would call reliable.

Along with the enclosed letter, he asked me to send you a sample of Mozambican dried fish, which we purchased for you at the market in Ribáuè, the village where he lives. Unfortunately, I’m sorry to say that I was not successful in my attempt to smuggle the rather pungent parcel past customs officials on my way back to the United States. Who knew that police dogs were also trained to sniff out African delicacies?

I have, however, included a few photos to give you a sense of what we’re dealing with.

If you would like to contact my brother directly, here is his address in Mozambique:

Scott Brennen / P.O. Box 002 / Escola Secondária de Ribáuè / Ribáuè, Nampula Moçambique

He does, occasionally, have internet access [when he travels]. On those occasions he can be reached at: scottbrennen@gmail.com

Alternatively, I would be happy to facilitate any further communication and can be reached at the following:

Andrea Brennen / 21 Avon St. #1 / Somerville, MA 02143 / abrennen@gmail.com

Thank you in advance for your help. He, I, and our mother are all grateful. We worry about him over there, y’know?

Yours,

Andrea Brennen

----

Dear Mr. Bittman;

Can I call you Mark? Good. Mark, I need your help.

You see Mark, I live in the Bush and there isn’t much to eat. I am a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural in-land Mozambique: I live in a hut, I cook with charcoal, I lose sleep to mosquitoes, and one time a crocodile ate my dog. I’ll eat just about anything, but there’s just not much of anything to eat. Mostly I eat beans: beans and corn, beans and rice, beans and cassava, beans and sorghum, beans and millet; when I want something special: beans and bread. Sometimes I eat greens, usually with beans. And frankly, Mark, after nineteen months it’s getting a little old.

And here is where you come in – you see, there is, in fact, another protein source. Mark, have you ever eaten Mozambican dried fish? Let me try to describe the experience.

Let’s start with bones. Lots of ‘em. Little bones, sharp bones, bones you can chew, bones you can’t. Bones that scratch as they go down; bones that scratch as they come back up. Next, add the smell of nearly rotten fish. No, not fully rotten, but you know everything one could hate about fish? Imagine that in concentrate. It smells like a practical joke, or like an afternoon fishing trip gone bad. It smells like forgetting your pet guinea pig in the basement for a month. Defeat, humiliation; yes, it even smells like Death. Now, salt. So much it makes you cry. Dirty, crunchy sea salt: big grains, little grains. It finds holes, it gets in deep. You taste it as you sleep.

So there it is, the three-part essence of Mozambican dried fish: salty, fishy bones. And here’s where I need your expertise: help me find a way to make this local product palatable. I could appeal to your sense of pity for a young American volunteering out in the Bush, but instead I appeal to your sense of exploration, of adventure. Let’s call it a challenge, perhaps your greatest ever: craft a good simple recipe for dried fish using nothing but a charcoal stove and locally grown foods. That means no electricity, no refrigerator, and no fancy kitchen equipment. I will include a list of what other ingredients are generally available here. Don’t worry, it will be short. Here in Mozambique your minimalist perspective is necessary not voluntary. Maybe this is what you’ve been looking for, what you’ve been waiting for. Yes, this could be your greatest challenge. Here, Mark, there is little, and here the need is great.

Thank you and good luck.

Yours,

Scott Brennen

P.S. In case you want to try some, here’s some dried fish.

Generally Available Ingredients:

Dried fish; infinite variety

Piri-piri chili

Tomatoes

Onions

Green petters

Oil

Salt

Chicken stock

Peanuts

Coconut

Sugar, sugar cane

Grans: wheat, rice, corn, millet, sorghum, cassava

Sweet and regular potatoes

Greens: collard, pumpkin, sweet potato, cassava, mustard, cauliflower

Bananas

Pasta

White bread

Assorted beans

Eggs

Rats, grasshoppers, flying termites – yes, people eat these

Dried mangoes

Sometimes Available:

Instant coffee

Tea

Powdered milk / Sweetened condensed milk

Pumpkin

Okra

Lettuce

Carrots

Papaya

Oranges

I have these spices from home:

Cumin

Curry

Garam masala

Rosemary

Basil

Oregano

Caraway

Thyme

Marjoram

Cinnamon

Ginger

Soy sauce

Chili powder

Food

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:10:00 +0000

Much of our time is spent on food…planning meals, walking to town to go to the market, cooking, eating…thinking about the food we have, day dreaming about the food we don’t.

Supplies in the market are limited and getting enough protein is a constant struggle. Our comparative wealth allows us the luxury of buying eggs…and the occasional chicken…but most people in Ribáuè subsist, for the most part, on mandioca [also called cassava or manioc, depending where you are]. Originally native to Brazil, this plant grows just about anywhere. Its greens are pretty tasty, not bitter at all, and the roots are vaguely potato-ish, but with a slightly chewier, denser consistency. Mandioca root can be dried, ground, and boiled to make a vaguely-polenta-like carb dish called caracata. Sometimes you see people eating the roots raw, which I didn’t feel the need to sample given that uncooked mandioca roots contain arsenic. Apparently, the common process is to nibble at the root in search of the less bitter parts which are, presumably, less toxic. No thanks.

Recipe for Matapa Zambeziano

[i.e. Mandioca greens with coconut milk]

½ kilo cassava leaves

2 L boiling water

½ kilo green papaya

milk of 1 coconut

2 onions

3 tomatoes

peanuts, crushed [“pilared”]

Boil all ingredients except coconut milk over fire. When water is almost boiled off, add coconut milk. Let simmer one hour.

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Other staple dishes include beans and caracata:

Boiled Mandioca root:

Despite the limited range of ingredients, Scotty and I managed to make some pretty excellent meals. We figured out a way to make bruschetta, a curried egg frittata, and even a chocolate cake with a ridiculously good frosting made from fresh grated coconut and sweetened condensed milk.

The Agrarian School

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:21:00 +0000

Day 21

I know...I know...such stereotypical pictures of "Africa". It's like one of those things you have to bring home...a photo of you with a mob of African children.

I swear, we ended up with these by accident.

Scotty, Greg, Jacinto, Banesh and I had planned to hike to the top of one of the nearby mountains, but I wussed out on account of the fact that we had to wade through a fresh water river. Well, also because it would have been like a 15 hour hike, which I wasn't really feeling up to, given the tropical temps.

We ended up walking to the nearby Agrarian school instead, where there were -- you guessed it -- mobs of African children. At first they were terrified of us, which was kindof hilarious. Eventually they warmed up, though, and then started begging to have their photos taken.

Here's Greg terrorizing them:

Emacua Lesson

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:16:00 +0000

Day 21

Mozambique

’s official tongue is Portuguese – the language of school, official business, and colonial history. But around Ribaue, everyone’s first language is Emacua.

This lesson is brought to you courtesy of Banesh, one of Scotty’s students. He accompanies Scotty, Greg, Jacinto, and I on our walk to the agrarian school.

i•ha•li – how are you?

sa•lam•a – good

va•ca•ni va•ca•ni – been better [literally, “little by little”]

ka•hi i•ha•li – and you?

ku•shu•ku•ru – thank you

ku•shu•ku•re•la – thank you very much

mun•ro•wa va•yee – where are you going?

kin ro•wa o•tu•mah e•yol•ya – I am going to buy food

in see•na nan•yo ta•ni – what is your name?

mu•kun•ya – white person [this is what people shout at Scotty and I]

no•ri•pe – black African [this is what Scotty shouts back]

ki•no ve•ka… – I am asking for…

nhu o•ve•ka van•che•ne – you ask too much

mu•no ki wo•ka – you’re a liar

em•pa•ka me•la – see you tomorrow

em•pa•ka i•wor•a i•kee•na – see you another time

em•pa•ka mo•ro•tu – see you after tomorrow

I start saying ihali to everyone. Most people seem thoroughly delighted at the thought of a makunha speaking emacua. The kids who were afraid of me now giggle.

The purchase and execution of Sir Thurber Montgomery

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Sun, 02 May 2010 17:56:00 +0000

Day 20

Yes. We named our dinner.

Here is the whole story...in pictures:

In and around Ribáuè

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Sun, 02 May 2010 17:48:00 +0000

Day 19

The Market:

The Edge of town:

The School:

Public phone booth:

The 'burbs' [Saua-saua]:

The mato [bush]:

The road to town

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Sun, 02 May 2010 17:08:00 +0000

Pretty Polly on the Porch

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:20:00 +0000

Tour of Scotty's House

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:52:00 +0000

mostly in pictures.

The house.

Concrete, tin roof, a little on the dark side. Quaint for sure, but not exactly my idea of homey. Everything has to be kept in Ziploc bags because of the bugs, and you never really know what other creatures you’re sharing the space with: frogs, lizards, roaches. One night there is even a rat…yea…a low point.

At night there is a sense of security that comes from enclosing oneself within a mosquito net. It’s not a lot…but it’s something.

The kitchen.

Outdoor, and fully equipped with the finest modern appliances Mozambique has to offer:

Stove:

Blender:

Garbage disposal:

Coconut scraper:

Despite these conveniences, dinner takes a while to prepare. I am getting on Scotty’s nerves for being overly conscious about wasting food, but it’s just that…y’know those starving kids in Africa you hear about? They live next door.

The casa de banho

Also outside; Scotty built a seat for the pit toilet and there is a separate area for showering, and by that I mean taking a bucket bath with cold water. Bamboo walls, thatch roof. During the day, it’s really not bad at all, but I am definitely too scared to go in at night.

So I’m afraid of the dark in

Mozambique

. So what? Don’t tell anyone, but one night I took a bucket bath in the back yard; and on more than one occasion I may or may not have peed in the garden.

The porch

Screened in, thanks to Scotty and Jacinto’s efforts. [Jacinto is Scotty’s empregado, i.e. the…er…butler.] Scotty basically lives out here and it’s not hard to see why; it’s awesome.

Getting to Ribáuè

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:38:00 +0000

Day 17

3:45 am wake up call; try for a good seat, but by the time we get on the train it is already almost full. Wrestling with my backpack I realize just how much more stuff I have than any of the other passengers.

What does this place remind me of? India? No, not really at all. Why was that even the image in my head? Nothing…it doesn’t remind me of anything; and that is a weird feeling.

Scotty had prepped me for discomfort, but the ride is surprisingly nice. I wish I could photograph the iselbergs just outside the city – mounds of clean rock the size of tiny mountains – but the train is going too fast. The landscape shifts from city to mato [bush]. I think I was expecting more savannah, less jungle. That might be because of the Lion King. Wow…I really have no business being here.

There is a rush of commotion when the train stops. Buying and selling. In Namina, Scotty gets us some cana de açucar. “This is the good stuff” he tells me. “We can’t get this at home.”

I think for a second that he means back in the states, but then I realize that he’s talking about Ribáuè.

Namina

----

Get off in Namagonia; catch a chapa for the 12km to Ribáuè. Barreling down the rutted road in the back of a truck, there is a quick moment when I actually fear for our lives, but no one else seems concerned. A young mother sitting across from me smiles as she nurses her daughter.

----

Ribáuè, the district capital, has a paved road. Greg, another pcv, lives “in town”; we stop by his place to rest for a few minutes and refill our bottles with bleach-treated water before the hour walk to Scotty’s house. The walk goes quickly, partly on account of the sugar cane. Scotty agrees when I tell him it is like a Mozambican popsicle. A ways down the road the houses start to disappear. Scotty corrects me when I call this mato. “This isn’t mato,” he says. Then he points out at the mountain, “that is mato.”

As far as I can see, there is nothing.

Nampula

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:30:00 +0000

Day 16

Scotty, peace corps volunteer.

Wake up at Scotty’s friend’s apartment: running water, shower, air conditioning. Easing in to Africa. The other pcv’s we met last night slept here as well. They seem really cool and sortof remind me of Grinnellians.

Coffee at Café Atlantico, i.e. where the white people hang out, and a bit of food shopping for breakfast. Later, a walking tour of downtown, a Shop Rite feast, a stop at the peace core office, and my first capalana. Later still, afternoon beers at Garretts and some fantastic roast chicken.

View of the church from Cafe Atlantico.

Nicest apartment in Nampula?

The Market.

This weird looking fruit is called atta. I think they call it "custard apple" in India.

Scotty and David at Garrett's.

Getting to Mozambique

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:26:00 +0000

Day 15

Deplane in Maputo; not into a jetway, just straight onto the tarmac. I follow the crowd into the arrivals hall and I look up to see a huge yellow sign – something about Yellow Fever. I’m already worried; I don’t have a vaccination card. I’ve heard you can get a shot at the border, but I don’t know what I’m more afraid of, yellow fever or getting an injection in a place with an HIV/AIDS rate as high as Mozambique [in some places reported to be 40%]. Luckily, my passport exempts me from the necessary shots. A flashback to the Middle East reminds me of the benefits of traveling on American documents.

----

Wait in line for a visa; they ask for the address where I’m staying. I just write Ribaue. I tell them I’m visiting my brother, a teacher at la escola secondária. Does that place even have an address?

----

While the officials deliberate over my visa, a Romanian man looks at me; he’s waiting too. We are the only white people in sight.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, in a tone somewhere between confusion and accusation.

I tell him I’m on my way to visit family, which I think confuses him even more, given my complexion.

“Aren’t you afraid?” He asks.

I look around, noticing the official sign hanging above us that offers a number to call if/when you encounter corruption in the airport.

“A little” I admit.

“I’m here for work, but I did everything I could to try to get out of it. This place is hell on earth.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Well, best of luck” he says with a smirk, as the border official returns with his visa-laden passport.

----

It takes nearly 2 hours to straighten out the reservation for my flight to the northern city of Nampula. There is a moment when I really doubt whether I’m going to make it, but eventually my credit car helps to clear up the confusion. Once the flight has taken off, I pull out my guidebook to Mozambique.

“So far as tourists are concerned, Mozambique might almost as well be two countries…the south coast of Mozambique is already established as a tourist destination… the north, by contrast, has few facilities for tourists, and getting to those that exist takes determination and either time or money.”

Great, I have neither.

“Any honest description of northern Mozambique is bound to repel visitors seeking comfort, predictability or packaged entertainment. Equally, it is likely to whet the appetite of travelers looking for an adventurous trip through one of southern Africa’s least-explored regions…little visited even by backpackers, northern Mozambique offers the sort of challenging travel that recalls conditions in countries like Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda in the mid-1980s – but exacerbated by linguistic barriers, humidity levels that reach intolerable proportions in summer, relatively high costs, and a public transport system that in places defies rational comprehension.”

Hmm.

The author goes on to describe travel in the north as “downright frustrating” and “a great deal of bumpy motion with relatively few highlights.”

Sounds fantastic.

I scan the history and culture sections, where I read about Mozambique’s brutal civil war that killed 100,000 people and the disastrous flooding of 2000 that left 500,000 people homeless. Finally, I get to the “Practical Information” chapter where I learn that “there’s a high likelihood that you will become ill at some point on your trip” given that “as with most of sub-Saharan Africa, Mozambique boasts an array of tropical diseases of varying degrees of severity and inconvenience.” I read on, cringing, as I make my way through page after page of gory details.

I’ll spare you the particulars, but I decide that’s just about enough of the guidebook.

Opting for some escapism, I pick up the novel I have with me. The Poisonwood Bible details the story of a missionary family that moves to the Congo in the 1960s. I make it through the part where Ruth May dies after being bitten by a green mamba, before I give up on reading material altogether.

I look out the window, then at the Moçambicano seated next to me, who is clutching both arm rests with a death grip.

Panic. Wait a minute…what am I doing here? What the hell was I thinking? I don’t belong here. Mozambique is the kind of place that people try desperately to leave, not the kind of place they go to voluntarily. Is it too late for second thoughts?

I look back at death grip; his eyes are closed, his lips moving slowly.

Praying? Doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

----

Step onto the tarmac; it’s hot…really hot. I look up and see Scotty on the balcony waving. Okay…I’m alive; he’s here; everything is going to be fine…right?

Here we go…

Aerial views of Cape Town

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:03:00 +0000

Day 14, Cape Town

View from Signal Hill

View from Table Mountain

A Bedouin and an Easter Bunny went to the top of Table Mountain....

Sounds like the start of a joke, right?

The Pan African Market

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:02:00 +0000

Day 13, Cape Town

[photos coming soon]

Is this Africa?

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:58:00 +0000

Chris and I were walking on the beach in Milnerton, talking about when his parents came to visit him in Cape Town 5 years ago. His mom, he told me, had been surprised by Cape Town; apparently, it didn’t match the image she’d had of Africa.

I told Chris I was kind of with her; the Cape Town we’d been hanging out in – shopping malls, gated suburbs, bourgeois coffee shops, lots and lots of white people – looked more like Southern California than any image I had in my head of Africa. Admittedly, we spent most our time in the white parts of the city, but even so, I was often surprised at how American it looked. Somehow, the familiar-looking cityscape made the unfamiliar cultural aspects seem that much more incongruous.

I know better than to rely on stereotypes; and even if I hadn’t, the idea of The African City had already been thoroughly problematized for us by Ntone [editor of Chimurenga] early on in the trip. And sure, I can admit it...my preconceptions of Africa were not at all well-informed. What was I expecting, Darfur? The Congo? I really don’t know.

Even so...I still couldn't get over how un-African it all seemed.

Change of Plans

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:50:00 +0000

Day 11, Cape Town

The old plan: Thursday, leave Cape Town, drive to Joburg [3 days], stay the weekend, bus to Maputo on Monday, flight to Nampula [to meet Scotty!] on Tuesday.

Total travel time from Cape Town to Nampula: 6 days.

The new plan: Friday, fly from Cape Town to Maputo, then catch another flight to Nampula [to meet Scotty 4 days sooner!!].

Total travel time from Cape Town to Nampula: 1 day.

Perhaps there would have been some benefit to the overland epic journey – a slow transition from the modern world to the end of the earth, but…well….I’d rather have the extra time to hang out with Scotty.

Easter

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:49:00 +0000

A lazy morning in Kalk Bay, some housekeeping, and another trip to the Waterfront. For Easter dinner we drove to Sea Point to see one of Chris’ friends from UCT [University of Cape Town]. It was super nice to have a home-cooked meal and allowed for an interesting glimpse into the microcosm of German-expat-slash-grad-student life.

I had very entertaining conversations with an ultra-marathoner from Joburg, who explained running clubs as an antidote to the otherwise complete lack of outdoor life in her crime-ridden city, an archaeologist from Oxford, who recounted the engineering challenges of removing rock art [cave paintings] from a crucial dig before 2011, when the site will be lost beneath a dam, and a PhD student studying the effect of media on teenage perceptions of race, who, quite candidly, told me that after 6 years of research on two continents, he’s come to the conclusion that he could have arrived at the same theoretical result after 1 hour of thinking.

All in all it was an interesting evening and not a bad way to spent Easter.

Barrydale

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:30:00 +0000

Day 8 + 9

We drove out to the country, to a small village called Barrydale, to stay with Nick [Chirs’s advisor from his master’s program], his wife Nicky, and their three kids. The drive was really spectacular – first through the Winelands and then some pretty dramatic hilly/rocky terrain. It was really nice to get out of the city, see something a little different, and take a break from Cape Town.

Nick and Nicky have a lovely little guest house in their backyard. [A few photos, below.]

Fyi, their system of renting a place in the city and owning a vacation home in the country seems like an excellent plan.

Friday evening we went swimming in a nearby river, then went to a nearby winery for some tasting, and live music. All in all, a pretty excellent evening.

Some photos from the river...

Saturday morning,a walk through Barrydale gave Chris an I a tiny bit of insight into Afrikaaner village life; somehow, even outside of Cape Town, I am still amazed at how strangely familiar everything looks.

Here's a photo of Barrydale’s “waterfront” a.k.a. the deck view from the Blue Cow, which is…if you’re ever in the area…an excellent breakfast spot.

The drive back to Cape Town was mostly uneventful. We took a different route – this time driving through the Cape Flats, where most of the townships are located. I didn’t take any photos because we were on the highway driving, but these are the areas that look…well…not at all like home.

The search for TRUTH at Prestwich Street

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 10:31:00 +0000

Cape Town

Day 7

Prestwich Street is the second site we’re looking at for our pod cast tour of Cape Town's forgotten places.

I’m still trying to get a handle on this place, as it is considerably more complex [and controversial] than the zoo, but here’s the basic layout as I understand it at this moment...

Prestwich is a street located in an area of downtown Cape Town known as Green Point. Other important things in Green Point include the following:

“The Cape Quarter” [also known as De Waterkant, pronounced “Va-tee-kant”].

Home to Cape Town’s gay community, this newly developed few-block-area boasts a variety of upscale cafes, shops, restaurants, and galleries. The generic architecture makes me think of an outdoor shopping mall somewhere in suburban California.

The Green Point Stadium

Still under construction, this huge and impressive stadium is being built in anticipation of the FIFA World Soccer Championships.

The Prestwich Street Memorial and the Rockwell

Although it is not actually located on Prestwich Street, this memorial was built in response to a controversy that erupted on Prestwich Street.

Basically, as I understand it, the story goes like this: the place that is now Prestwich Street used to be a burial ground for the slave population of Cape Town. Other than oral histories, there were no records kept concerning this land and as a result, the identities of those buried here remains contested.

Several years ago, when a large lot on Prestwich Street was being prepped in anticipation of the construction of the Rockwell Building, human remains were unearthed by the excavation crews.

What ensued was a consistently-messy and sometimes-violent controversy concerning whether or not the development should continue and what was to be done with the human remains.

The “Hands off Prestwich” committee was formed by a group of Capetonian activists to lobby on behalf of the people who had been buried at Prestwich Street and their descendants, many of whom are part of the disenfranchised “Colored” population of Cape Town, currently living in townships such as Mitchell’s Plain and Kaylitsha in the Cape Flats.

To skip ahead a bit, construction of The Rockwell Building continued, and the unearthed remains were moved to an ossuary at the newly built Prestwich Street Memorial.

The Rockwell Building currently offers luxury condos and long-term rental spaces to the population of Green Point, although there is some sense that the very visible controversy did have a negative impact on the project’s economic success.

Ironically, the story of unearthed human remains told by the Prestwich Street memorial does not specifically reference the Rockwell site, but rather, tells a general and very down-played tale of slave burials, disputed identities, and the ethical implications of developing contested spaces.

Even more ironically, the memorial building is now also home to a café that sports the logo “TRUTH.” There continues to be some debate as to whether the memorial-slash-coffee-house thing works [i.e. it attracts people to the site so a larger audience learns about the story of Prestwich Street] or if it is simply offensive.

Refraining from judgment for the time being, here is a photo collection of the memorial’s not-so-hidden-TRUTHs:

District Six

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 10:19:00 +0000

Cape Town

Day 6

The District Six Museum

tells the story of District Six, an area near downtown Cape Town from which 60,000 "Colored" inhabitants were forcibly removed on accord of Apartheid legislation such as the Group Areas Act of 1950.

Here are links to a three-part post on social sustainability and the redevelopment of District Six that I wrote for JustMeans:

District Six: A Case Study in Unsustainable Development

Does Sustainable Development demand a new definition of "Value"?

Sustainable Design, the Role of the Architect, and a Question of Ethics

On a much lighter note, Kirstenbosch is Cape Town's incredibly beautiful botanical gardens, dating back to the early 20th century.

Return to the Zoo

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 08:06:00 +0000

Cape Town

We went back to the Zoo with the intention of documenting it. I drew a map and Christian interviewed some of the people who were there; we also took pictures to supplement those from our first zoo trip.

We’re thinking about presenting the audio stories we collected tagged to sites on a map – sortof a spatial organization of the stories [or pieces of stories].

Here are some of my notes from the second trip to the Zoo

- The crocodiles were kept below, at the bottom of the hill, and the lions above. According to Nick this had to do with Cecil Rhodes’s intension to inscribe an evolutionary story in the way the zoo was organized: visitors would see less ‘developed’ animals at the bottom and, as they walked up the hill, would eventually work their way up to lions [Rhodes’s favorite]. Today, we would, of course tell a different evolutionary story, probably with apes at the top of the hill instead of lions, but here, I suppose the perceived strength of the animals is written into the science [less evolved = weaker; more evolved = stronger].

- The zoo is a funny combination of classical and picturesque design. There is a very dominant tree-lined central axis [crocodiles to lions] but also a series of winding paths, and vegetation that obscures one's view from those paths.

- As the zoo has long been abandoned, the lions’ cage has recently seen some other kinds of users/inhabitants: squatters, kids hanging out smoking pot, and artists using the space for photo shoots and exhibitions.

- As I was drawing the lions’ den for my map, I met and started talking to Ronald, who lives at the Zoo and sleeps in one of the cages. He had the following words of wisdom to share with me:

1] Michael Jackson was the king of pop, but he wore too much make-up.

2] Make-up isn’t good because it hides the face G*d gave you.

3] Colored people don’t wear make-up.

4] Colored people only use water – and cold water at that; warm water dries out your skin.

5] I should use only cold water to wash my face.

6] I look like I have a good heart, not like most tourists who come to the zoo. Most tourists who come to the zoo seem disgusted by the people who sleep there. The tourists think that they don’t notice, but they notice.

7] There’s still a lot of racism in Cape Town even though people don’t talk about it as much as they used to.

Current State of the Project

noreply@blogger.com (andrea) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:57:00 +0000

Cape Town

Three things we know about the project at this point…[I think]…

1. We definitely want to document a series of sites, using a combination of audio and visual material.

2. During this trip, we’re going to focus on three sites: the Zoo, the Pan African Market, The Prestwich Street Memorial.

3. We are very interested in possible/potential ways that the project could be expanded via a collaboration with Nick and the Center for African Studies, Ntone and Chimurenga, Ciraj and the District Six Museum, Kate and Greatmore Studios…or any possible combination of those people and institutions.

A few comments about our particular sites:

They are somewhat randomly chosen…places that Christian came across while he was here doing research 5 years ago…places with interesting stories that he is already aware of…and places for whom he knows of interesting people to tell those stories. The “randomness” of this initial site selection is something we’ve talked a lot about: Does it matter? Are we okay with the fact that it makes our project, in some way, highly personal? Is there something more that these sites have in common? What makes the stores about them interesting? Etc.

The randomness aside…I have the feeling that I need to find something about them – individually and in combination – which ensures that I understand why I am taking them on as a project.

The Zoo and Prestwich Street are interesting [and perhaps, we could argue, even in need of our intervention] because the stories associated with them are no longer very accessible at the actual [physical] site. There is not enough visible evidence left for an uninformed visitor to know what happened there.

The Zoo is no longer a functioning zoo; it is more like a ruin of a zoo. And Prestwich Street was the site of some very controversial development when the Rockwell Building [housing a luxury hotel + condos] was built atop a burial ground. Bones found during the excavation of the site were later moved to a memorial site down the street, but the Rockwell itself no longer bears any evidence of its controversial inception.

Both sites are, in a way, forgotton places. Maybe that’s what we’re making – a tour of forgotten places.