Ch. 1: Find Me in Africa

I should have said I was going to Africa. Just to see what the responses would be. “Europe” would surely be different. Those who asked, “Where in Europe?” would expect a list of countries – not just one – that had been grouped together for their geographic proximity. How many would have asked, “Where in Africa?” And if they did, what would they expect from my response? Sure, some would be familiar, but I imagine for many my answer would simply be cross-checked with a list of alarm-bell countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe. For others it would put me in the green part instead of the brown part. I am predicting this because I always said I was going to South Africa. The responses – lions, spears, missionaries – how much did they depend on the South part?

I do not speak with disdain. A year ago I was one of them – only wise enough not to trust my pre-judgments. And I can’t blame it all on ignorance. “Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika” is the national anthem here – “God bless Africa.” What other country has an anthem that praises the continent and not the country? If there is another, I bet it is in Africa. There is something of a shared experience that didn’t end when Europeans sat around a table and drew lines on a map. There is a shared exploitation, a shared diaspora, shared poverty, and shared resistance. It is a point of pride that the lines the Europeans drew did not slice open a people.

Unity is not homogenous. That’s why I’m both in South Africa and in Africa. But there’s more – I’m in Cape Town. “It’s striking how un-African Cape Town looks and sounds,” says my travel guide. But I am looking to experience Africa the only way something big can be experienced – by seeing a small portion of it and understanding how it fits into the rest, without projecting it onto the whole. That’s not a preferred method of the tourism industry which fathered my guide. The truth is, my trip to the grocery store today was as authentic an African experience as any Kruger Park safari, but we all love canons, and if there’s going to be a canon, the Mowbray Shoprite is not going to be in it.

Through all of South Africa right now it is 3:23 am. At least at the time I am writing this in a notebook – I don’t yet have an adapter to plug in my computer. My first attempt to adjust my sleep schedule was foiled earlier by the timid tinkle of my alarm clock, which allowed me to sleep from morning until mid-afternoon. Any sleep in the two days leading up to that could have been called “nodding.” I flew from Charleston, WV, to Washington, then overnight to Frankfurt, Germany, then overnight to Cape Town. In two full days I ate three total meals. But I only ate again after sleeping, arranging my room, grocery shopping, dueling with a pay phone, and meeting my neighbors. I guess I hadn’t burned many calories adjusting my tray table.

In Frankfurt I met a family of four from California on their way to visit relatives in Iran. They were pleasantly open as we waited for our flights. The fifth-grade boy, Daniel, showed me some of his drawings and stories depicting his favorite superheroes – Egyptian gods. I introduced him and his brother to the art of drawing a portrait without looking at the page. Of course, I got a free portrait out of the deal, in which I appear to have been buried in a pyramid for thousands of years. I now have it hanging on my bulletin board next to my map of Cape Town.

On the way to Frankfurt I sat next to a woman from Hanover, Germany who managed a New Orleans jazz band in the States. When the flight attendant made an announcement, she remarked that her German was beautiful.
- “Can you tell where she is from?” I asked.
- “Yes. Hanover. That area.”

I’m sure most Capetonians would disagree with the statement in my travel book. To them Cape Town sounds exactly like Africa, just as, to my travel companion, Hanover sounds exactly like Germany. I’ll be writing to you periodically during my year here. My hope is that my isolated experience, put in perspective, will help you find this part of the world. For me, it will be a chance to reflect, and I accept the hopeless challenge of pouring my experience into the mold of the written word. Any time you want to hit the reply button to ask, comment, argue, or inform, it would bring me encouragement. Now I will leave off, because it is time I find Africa on the backs of my eyelids.