BLANC ET NOIR I

SOUTH AFRICA II

“All I can add in my solitude, is, may heaven's rich

sore of the world”

David Livingston’s last words inlaid in brass on his

tomb in Westminster Abbey

Pakenham, Thomas, The Scramble for Africa, 1991, xix

Livingstone’s concern was with the eradication of slavery, of course, just as his contemporaries of like mind are concerned with the elimination of racial prejudice. Nothing is more obvious here than the differences between European and African, between white and black, and nothing is more disturbing. The races are conveniently and broadly subdivided into three: African, Asian, and European; to most adults here and certainly to all the kids, I'm obviously European. The racial interaction is certainly very much more complicated than just that between white and black, but equally surely there is one overriding issue that is basically black and white: the colonial exploitation of African blacks by European whites that began in East Africa in the last century and in South Africa two centuries earlier, and the rising up of blacks in the last half of this century in an effort to wrest some sort of equality from whites. The dominant religious groups, certainly in East Africa and I think to the south as well, are also three: Catholic, Muslim, and Protestant. Although some fear violence from religious extremists, particularly Muslim fundamentalists, religious extremism here appears to me to be latent at worst; the most likely roots of insurrection are political and economic.

Nowhere in my travels are the differences between whites and blacks more apparent, and more troubling, than in South Africa. My perspective is only that of a casual traveler, and it comes, not surprisingly, through the eyes of white expatriates, some of whose families have lived in this region for many generations. These individuals were very kind to me, sought me out to engage in conversation, and invited me to visit them in their homes. Equally unsurprisingly, the blacks I met were in the service industry, so our relationships were necessarily perfunctory and our discussions very casual. What they think about the current situation I could only try to read from their faces and demeanor. Occasionally a black servant in a white household made a revealing statement that was passed on to me, and I do get infrequent, and I think quite honest comments from three or four of the older men teachers at Ilboru. What follows then is nothing more significant than a simple distillation of personal experiences during eight months of living in Africa.

My first and still strongest impression of South Africa is that it's as well developed and organized as any country in the world. It was sheer pleasure to drive again on freeways, and I almost cried with joy when I walked into a well-stocked bookstore in a small shopping mall near my hotel in Sandton, an independent suburb of Johannesburg. The inns, the lodges, and the hotels in which I stayed during my three-week visit were outstanding. The city of Pretoria, which I toured with newfound friends, was a delight to visit, and what little I could see of Cape Town from the freeway appeared to be thoroughly modern. Service by South African Airways was very good, and I can't recall another airline that handles check-in procedures as efficiently; of course business-class travel does have its perquisites.

A second impression, however, is less strong only because I didn't confront the issues surrounding it nearly so often: the contempt of the white for the black is barely concealed; it's a tension at the very surface of consciousness. The woman who told me of the mall where I found the bookshop, a CD-shop, a hotel in which I'll stay next time, and more,...a gray-haired grandmother about my age, was working in the hotel gift shop. I had a few hours to kill before my Pretoria friends arrived, so I asked her what to do. “Don't go into Johannesburg, whatever you do,” she advised; “it's not safe, and there's nothing to see anyway.” She described what I could see within reasonable walking distance of the hotel, and then our conversation turned, as it did with almost everyone I met, to the racial problems confronting the country. “We should have shot Nelson Mandela twenty-three years ago when we first arrested him,” she said in a strong definite voice. “I'm sorry to say it, but that's how it is.”

Hers was similar to an attitude that had been voiced to me many times previously in South Africa: “You and the Australians and others simply murdered the indigenous people who got in your way; we should have too, but we didn't.’ Less frequently, but still several times, I heard something like: “You have apartheid in America, too; you just call it suburbia.” And my friends in Pretoria argued, “The blacks may be equal, but they are different.” To which he added, “When the fighting starts, we'll be the first to be lined up against the wall and shot.” My river-running friend from Harrare, in his home, asked in implied, but transparent terms, “Well, what do you think of the black man by now?”

The comments shown above in quotes are paraphrases of what I remember people saying; I did not record their statements verbatim in my notes. They do reflect correctly both what was said and how it was said, however. How are they to be regarded? Outrageously racist? White supremacist? The death rattle of an anachronistic civilization? I don't doubt that a year ago I would have assented to all three questions, quickly, definitely, and with no reservation. Or do they represent the legitimate concern of the developers and inheritors of a legitimate way of life? I'm not sure, but I'm beginning to think there may be at least some merit in that opposing viewpoint.

It's at a moment like this when I particularly regret being unable to reach out to the bookcase for a particular volume or to phone across campus for the opinion of an informed colleague. All I can do in the circumstances is fall back on the reduced memory of an aging brain–and drink another Kenyan beer in the Tanzanian darkness.

It is a fact that the Afrikaans, the Boers, the British, and other Caucasians built the Republic of South Africa into what it is today, and it is their descendants and other immigrants from Europe who maintain and control that structure. I have not the slightest doubt, that when the blacks gain control, through either enfranchisement or revolution, the existing European culture will quickly collapse. Of course I may be completely wrong [and wrong I was, as subsequent developments have demonstrated]. To me the question is not so much whether this end is right or wrong, but whether either race will be better off when it happens. Obviously the rights of the black majority must be expanded drastically. But can that be done gradually enough to ensure an efficient transfer of authority without bloodshed? I was relieved to read recently that the ANC and the Boers, to use the terms of the local paper, have agreed to a five-year continuance of shared governance.

My drive south the day I left Roggeland was about as exciting as anything I did in South Africa. Once again the region struck me as almost a microcosm of the American West. On the way out of the Franschhoek Valley, I might just as well have been driving out of the Sonoma Valley, until I looked down on the vineyards and observed the buildings to be Cape Dutch. Once atop the plateau I could well have been in Colorado, except for the dryness and the obvious difference in the plants and birds. A little beyond the picturesque old town of Caledon, I thought for sure I was in Washington's Palouse until I noticed that the stubble fields were abundantly populated with ostriches–I later learned that barley is grown here–and along the Indian Ocean coast, which I traveled for most of five days, I could have been in Oregon or Northern California, except that the water was so obviously warm and the plants so different–here, even some of the birds are similar: gulls, terns, cormorants, oyster catchers,... –and occasionally in some inland bay maybe even an itinerant godwhit from Monterey Bay?

My first stop along the Indian Ocean was at the Arniston Hotel, in a town of that same name just a little east and north of Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa. Because of my exciting sightseeing and some interesting bird watching, I got to the hotel toward the end of the lunch hour only to find that it was served buffet style in a bar that was already well overcrowded with unappetizing, at least to my view, tourists. I was too hungry to make it to dinner, so I acted on the advice of my Roggeland waitress, Beulah, whose family lives here, who had said that many of her friends preferred the food in the town's only other restaurant. I had no trouble finding it–the town is smaller than its fishermen's name, Waenhuiskrans; if anything this place looked even less appealing, but at least the crowd was authentic, so I sat down. Ultimately I got a bottle of wine: “the drier of the two you have, please,” from a waitperson whose gender I never did ascertain, but not without a wait, a walk to the bar to remind them I was still alive, and then another wait. But when my platter of local seafood arrived, I was pleased, and when I realized that the thin but large slab of shellfish under all that breading was some very succulent abalone, I was in heaven; fortunately the breading was removable.

When the owner came around to greet his guests after lunch, I was lavish in my praise of the seafood and only slightly critical of the wine selection; when he expressed surprise that I thought semillon drier than chenin blanc, we dropped the discussion–perhaps it is not in South Africa. I asked advice on where to observe game and birds in the vicinity, and he recommended the nearby De Hoop game sanctuary, which I subsequently visited twice and where I was particularly impressed by the small herd of bontebok, a member of the hartebeest family that is now extinct in the wild state. A few minutes later two local ranchers whom the owner had sent over visited me because of my expressed interest in birds. One invited me to come to his place of lodging for coffee, so he could phone a brother-in-law to see if he had time to show me around a little–he didn't–and also to look up and give me the phone number of a Cape Town professor friend who is an expert on local birds. They are a very friendly, helpful, and hard working people.

My next stop was at the Wilderness Hotel, a modern spa complete with a casino, yet with a decided informality and family orientation that are, I suppose, consistent with its being in a national park. The park itself seems to be a series of small plots all along the coast, the “Garden Route” as it's designated here. I stopped at two: one along a small, somewhat marshy lake, that included a few circular huts for protection from sun and rain that made dandy bird-watching sites for me; the other a long wooden walking bridge along the river that constituted one segment of the Kingfisher Trail. The latter was complete with drawings of ten or so species and comments on their habits, but the only one I saw that day was back at the lake; it was a pied kingfisher, a species that typically hovers in one spot for several seconds before diving into the water after its prey. On the way to Wilderness, I had detoured into Mossel Bay, the town not the water, so I could drive along the Bay for a short distance. I was excited to see an old plane that I took to be a Ford Trimotor slowly circling the Bay. A week or two later I learned from my rafting acquaintance in Harrare, who has both military and commercial flying experience, that it was instead the Junker JU-52, the plane favored by no less a villain than Adolph Hitler. My friend had seen it a few days earlier while visiting his mother in Cape Town.

My route the next day was a continuation of the Garden Route east past Knysna and on toward Plettenberg. My destination was an establishment known severally as Hunter's in the descriptive brochure from my Johannesburg travel agent, as Hunter's House on the accompanying photocopied map, and when I ultimately found it, as Hunter's Country House by those who operate it. I drove past the first sign I saw advertising some sort of Hunter's, fully expecting to make a return trip, but turned in at the second; when I saw the magnificence of the place, I fully expected that I had made a mistake, but no, a Professor Johnson was indeed expected, and my room would be ready shortly. From Mossel Bay to Stormriver appears to be the best of the Indian Ocean coast here, and I suspect that Plettenberg, right on the Bay, is the heart of the coast. Hunter's is on a bluff at one end of the Bay, and thus it offers a quiet forest setting within a few minutes' drive of everything one could possibly want. The Plettenberg is an even more famous hostelry, but I doubt it could tempt me away from Hunter's on a return visit. In describing the latter, I can do no better than to quote from its elegant brochure:

“Nestling in the heart of the Garden Route, between the Tzitzikama Mountains and the Indian Ocean, overlooking the magnificent indigenous forests is an exclusive retreat–Hunter's Country House. Surrounded by almond orchards and beautiful gardens, and catering for only thirty guests, it offers an escape from the hustle and bustle, yet is only a short drive from Plettenberg Bay. Experience gracious living in elegant, antique furnished, individual thatched garden suites, each with private patio and fireplace. Enjoy hearty farm breakfasts and superb dinners in the baronial dining room of the main house.”

Guests were invited to assemble half an hour before dinner for drinks in the library. Although there was atypically little interaction among the several small groups of visitors present, the host and hostess spent considerable time chatting with each of us. The menu was presented individually, and our orders for food and wine were taken; it was then I learned that my host had an interest in wine, and I followed his advice in selecting a local pinot noir. It turned out quite nicely but not up to good Oregon standards. His comments and some subsequent reading informed me that the best of the pinots come from the Constantia region, the site of the original vineyards in the country, and that one of the Burgundy negociants is involved there just as another has been for some time in Oregon. The choice of wine dictated roast sirloin with horseradish and thyme sauce as entree–he correctly guaranteed it would be rare–and I successfully negotiated to have the cheese platter precede the heavenly, as it turned out, peach and cointreau syllabub; this latter is no mean accomplishment in countries where British traditions are followed. The pea and mint soup to begin the meal was not a success, but it was more than compensated for by a very nice chicken liver parfait with Cumberland sauce. I particularly enjoyed their practice of inviting guests into the dining room in individual parties; when I was seated, my wine was already on the table, unopened of course, and the host remained a moment or two to open it and ensure that everything was in order. To choose between Roggeland and Hunter’s would be difficult indeed; one needs reservations at both.

As the Garden Route continues eastward the coast gets more rugged and the accommodations more rustic. Since I never plan trips, even major ones, very far ahead, I don't always find the most desirable places to have space for me, particularly during the high season or over holiday weekends. That I was able to stay in so many fine places on this trip is, I think, a tribute both to the quality of my travel agents and to the wisdom of traveling alone. I didn't ask, but I'm certain that a place with Hunter's deserved reputation was fully booked for the holidays, so I was not all disappointed to be moving elsewhere to spend the last two nights remaining in the year, particularly since it appeared I would be staying in the vicinity of a significant national park. Still, the appearance of the T’zitzikama Forest Inn and the perfunctoriness of reception formalities there stood in very sharp contrast to what I had experienced for many weeks. I consoled myself with thoughts of how luxurious even this was when compared to my space at Ilboru. That afternoon I spent driving around the region, getting acquainted with its rugged beauty, and even visiting what we call a truck stop, although this was much nicer and more elaborate than ours, and served as a major refueling stop for all types of vehicles in a largely uninhabited region, as a source of a cheeseburger and fries, and as the provider of another of those very useful 250 ml bottles of decent South African cabernet–I had only a few hundred meters' drive back to the Inn. I guess I had recovered my normal attitude by then, since the bill was accompanied by the following note printed on a napkin: “Thank you for being so friendly. A Happy New Year. Nicolene.” After paying and wishing her an equally happy New Year, I went out and walked across the Paul Sauer Bridge to look down on the most impressive Storms River Canyon; clearly it is what determined the location of the truck stop.

Back at the Inn I discovered that it had much more to offer than I realized from the receptionist's reception; I was staying in one of the “more rustic chalets” off in a remote corner of the Inn, whereas I might choose on another visit to enjoy a “village room” and some of the numerous facilities that are available. During the course of my stay I met the owner, his family, and a couple who were either bother and sister-in-law or the other way around; all were most cordial, and in fact I joined their table for dessert following the New Year's Eve outdoor barbeque. During some part of this interaction with management I acquired the straight facts on the various spellings of the native name assigned to so many of the local features. The Inn is named T'zitzikama, which is the correct original designation; civil authority has decreed, however, that the park, the forest, and other entities shall be called Tsitsikamma. Whether it was the security of that vital information, or perhaps the bottle of Louis Jourdan rose'–the very same I had purchased at the winery but left untasted at Roggeland–I had at dinner that evening, the penultimate of 1992, that led to such a restful night, I do not know.

The ultimate morning of the year was bright and sunny and promised a very hot day to come. I headed immediately for T–well, you know how it's spelled now–National Park, and it was a good thing I left the Inn early: parking lots there filled quickly. I got some literature from Park headquarters and then sat around reading it. Ultimately I decided to follow the Lourie Trail hoping to see its namesake, a rather reclusive, parrot-like bird that is named turaco in East Africa. I saw hardly any birds but did meet and chat with a number of interesting people–wearing my Peace Corps Tanzania cap always elicits interest and/or sympathy–and at one point reached a vista of the ocean and coastline that rivals the best in Oregon. Unaccustomed to all that much exercise, particularly on such a hot day, I began wondering on my return to the car around 11:00, if perhaps I should have some lunch in the Park restaurant. I decided to postpone that in order to follow a short trail that leads to the very same Storms River by whose gorge I had dined Yankee style the previous noon; of course, this would be its mouth. On the way I noticed a young lad pointing out to his family something in a tree above the trail; I, better than they, realized what he had found: a pair of elusive Knysna louries. Fascinated, I watched them for 15 or 20 minutes, walked out to the end of the trail to see the river's mouth, and returned to watch them for another 10 minutes before climbing back to the restaurant for my second consecutive Yankee lunch beside the Storms River, with, yes, even in a national park, another of the ubiquitous 250 ml bottles of South African cabernet. After a brief rest from all that exertion in the hot sun, I walked down the road and then along the Otter Trail; after about an hour when it started meandering among huge rocks, the route being marked with yellow-painted feet, and was clearly headed for a rock cliff, I decided that it was indeed “not for the unfit,” especially not when he was alone and tired. I retired early and well satisfied that night, especially after seeing that the moon was swelling appropriately for our scheduled conjunction at Victoria Falls.

W. Vance Johnson

20 Feb 93