Lili has gone back to the US and Canada for a month to sort out her Canadian residency, so I (Ramin, in case you are wondering…) am alone for a while and writing this post. Two weekends ago, Lili and I went camping with some of our friends (Vusi, Sharon and Kevin and their two beautiful children Lulama and Zara) in Venda, the north eastern part of South Africa near the border of Zimbabwe.
The Venda is one of the tribes in South Africa, and during Apartheid their traditional land was designated as a homeland for them to continue living in. They were thus largely unaffected by the forced removals and could continue their traditional way of life in their ancestral lands. Other tribes were less fortunate and often evicted from their fertile lands and forced to live in other less desirable areas. Because the Venda were allowed to continue living in their ancestral lands, their traditional way of living was apparent as we drove through their villages scattered throughout Venda’s rolling hills of red dirt.
The Venda mostly live in compounds of three or four round huts, which probably house different members of the extended family. The landscape and feel of Venda was one of the nicest places I have been in South Africa and it really felt like stepping back a little bit in time. Unfortunately our pictures do not do justice.
The campsite we stayed in was run by one of the local villages. It was sad because, as the caretaker explained, only three or four groups had stayed there since it opened this past January. It was a little off the beaten path so maybe tourists and other South Africans are a bit hesitant to come. They are definitely missing out. The campsite was surrounded by riverine forests, and once the sun went down the owls came out. Their calls were so loud that you could almost hone in on them in the darkness. One owl’s call pierced through our tent in the middle of the night and made me almost jump out of the sleeping bag. We were fortunate to see a few of them in the trees with our flashlights. As for the art of camping, it had been a long time since I spent the night in a tent, and my hips felt it in the morning. That being said, it was a great time and it felt refreshing to wake up to the crisp Venda air sipping a warm cup of coffee brewed on our portable gas stove.
I also spent this past weekend in Swaziland. I went with my neighbor from down the road, Amy, who is also from Canada. She had spent a few months in Swazi previously doing research and so it was great to go with her as she knew lots of people and her way around. We decided to go because a concert was scheduled at the House of Fire to benefit a recording studio for local up and coming Swazi musical artist. House of Fire is where Bushfire is held, the annual music festival in Swaziland. Musicians from all over Africa are now coming to play at Bushfire and it has gained quite a following as an organic festival. Lili and I missed it this year, but we are going next May when it is being held again. They have set out a campsite adjacent to the venue, so it really has a festival feel.
Swaziland is a strange country as it is entirely landlocked within South Africa. At first it does not feel very different than South Africa because you see the same stores and the rural architectural style is similar (mostly basic cinder block houses). After a while you begin to sense a subtle difference- similar to that when you enter the US from Canada or vice versa. Soon enough it really does feel like you are in a different country, and in many ways it feels a little more traditional than South Africa. It is ruled by a king with something like 11 wives, who all have their own black BMW M6s. Much of the country from what I saw was dirt poor, so it makes the casual visitor ask a lot of questions about what is really going on that no one really wants to answer while you are there. Nevertheless, despite this rather in-your-face inequity, the country seems very much more relaxed than South Africa, and the people are amazingly friendly. The black and white populations also seem to be more integrated than their counterparts in South Africa. The concert we went to had a very mixed crowd that mingled together and it was refreshing to see that after living in South Africa where usually the opposite occurs.
