May 24, 2007

Table Mountain/First Glimps of Cape Town

I am going to let the pictures speak for themselves on this one.

May 22, 2007

Mama Yoyo

 Just a quick note on an amazing women. In the poorest part of South Africa that I have seen yet, a short, plump black woman affectionately called Mama Yoyo is working a miracle. A few years back, Yoyo noticed all of the children in her neighborhood were going without an education and were running around all day with nothing to do. So she decided to start a school for them. With no funding, little help, and a lot of faith, she converted four small tin roofed shackes into a elementry school for the poorest of the poor. 

There are a few picutres here. We walked around the school and were astounded to find out that over 200 children pack into these four small shacks, no bigger than Emily's room. We sang "This Little Light of Mine" for them, and gave them the money that we had earned singing at the Durban Town Hall. But no matter how much you give, you always feel guitly driving away from such obvious need.

May 21-23, 2007

East London/Port Elizabeth/George

Just a quick entry on these three towns. They are beautiful costal towns and singing in both of them was a real treat because, as the locals told us afterward, they never get any of the shows coming through there towns. We stayed with a recently reactivated former South African skateboard champ, and had a grand time with him. talking about how the Gospel has changed his life again for the first time.

But perhaps most exciting for the family to here is that I got to swim with the sharks in the Indian Ocean. I was busy body surfing witha fellow base named Dane, when all of the sudden we here yelling from the shore. We look back to see a local lifeguard running towards us waving a big white flag with a big black shark on it. Needless to say, I have never movved so fast in the water in all my life. It turned out, that the shark was still a ways off, but it makes for a great story.

May 18-20, 2007

Durban

    We finally made it to the Indian Ocean. Our first glimps of the most exotic of the oceans came as we pulled into the port town of Durban. This beautiful city is much more English colonial than the previous towns we have visited, and fittingly enough, we were treated like royalty the whole time we were here. We had a VIP reception with city officials and univeristy administrators (I did some of the best schmoozing in the the choir, I must say). 

We sang in the beautiful town hall to a packed audience of dignitaries and citizens, and our host family, the Scott's, rolled out the red carpet for us. Of course, the thing I enjoyed most about the city was Daren, the adorable curly-haired Karate expert that belonged to our host family. 

Besides taking a real liking to her American visitors and delighting us with her laugh, she taught us how to properly perform a Karate punch. Watch out boys of South Africa, Daren the Durban Ranger will be able to give even Walker a run for his money.   

Zulu Village

We visited a Zulu village today. Now before you get too excited, I should let you know that, while they say it is authentic, the village was part of a large game reserve that was a hot-spot for tourists wanting a taste of indigenous South Africa that still had a restaurant and gift shop within walking distance. Never the less, even if they were just actors, they put on a great show, and we learned all about their customs.

Zulus, like Swazis, can have multiple wives, provided a man can prove to the girl's family that he can provide for her. He does this by paying what is called "lobola" to the girls family upon engagement. A typical lobola in a Zulu tribe is 11 cows, give or take a few depending on the girl. However, the guy doesn't just pay the lobola without finding out if the girl is right for him. Before he pays the lobola, he goes to the tribe's fortune teller, who breaths in smoke and throws bones from a cow horn in order to find our if the potential bride will be a good wife. If things look promising, they put together a wedding ceremony that lasts typically 3-4 days, with dancing, singing, drumming and eatings. After the girl is married, she wears a hat that is braided into her hair for all time.

The tribes make fantastic thatched roof huts that are suprisingly cool and have waterproof floors made by wiping them with cow dung. They make their own famous beer which plays an important role in tribal life, and the men always sit on the right side of the hut, not because they are consided better, but because it is easiest for a right handed man to throw a spear at an indruder from the right side of the hut then it is from the left. Seems like they thought of everything.  Except, of course, for underwear. 

May 16, 2007

Swaziland

   Today, during our 14 hour drive from Joburg to Durbin we stopped in the scenic country of Swaziland. This completely land-locked country is the poorest nation in southern Africa, has an AIDS rate around 50%, and is ruled by a king that takes a few chapters out of the book or Solomon. Every year, the king has topless virgins parade infront of him in a big festival, and his head wife picks a new wife for the king from among them. The king currently has 13 wifes, going on 14.

We were actually supposed to sing for him and his estrogen-laden court, but we arrived in Swaziland around 9am, and much to our dismay, the representitive from the UN that greeted us informed us that the king is a late night person and doesn't do anything before 12pm. So instead we sang for a Catholic orphanage, and took pictures overlooking a beautiful valley.  The kids loved us, especially our beat-boxing, and they sang for us their national anthem. In a way it was bitter-sweet because, while they sang beautifully and with happy spirits, I couldn't help but think that of these 700 innocent children, around 350 would die of AIDS, and the other 350 would most likely never rise about the poverty line. Though they have just as much potential for greatness as any one of us in the choir, because of the time, place, and circumstance s of their birth, they will probably never reach it. Of course, I coundn't worry about this for long, I had to get back on our air-conditioned bus so that we would be on time for lunch.

May 15, 2007

Kruger National Park

Today I went on an African safari. Yes, that’s right, a safari. That ultimate adventure that has traditionally been reserved for British millionaires with mustaches and elephant guns can now be bought by the average American for a mere 50 dollars. Let me tell you, it was worth ten times that. Words are really inadequate here. I don’t know how to describe the feeling of seeing a herd of elephants cross the road 20 feet from your jeep, and having the leading female flap her massive ears at you in warning.

Or seeing a rhino emerge from the bush beside you, horn swinging. Or to see a giraffe bow its legs in the funniest of postures in order to get low enough to drink from a waterhole. Or to see a lion lying lazily beneath a bush, and knowing that the car door is the only thing coming between you and the lions mouth. I just can’t describe to you how much of a thrill a day full of experiences like this is. Vicariously just doesn’t cut it when it comes to safaris.

Without going into tiresome detail, I want to give you a brief rundown of the day. We started out early (before dawn) because most of the animals do their feeding and roaming in the cooler hours of the day. Our driver/guide was an older fellow who had been doing tours of the park for 50 years, and still loved it like it was his first time out. Throughout the day he would stop and tell us fascinating stories of life and death in the park, talk about the importance of respect for nature, and even pause to point out that we should thank God for such an amazing earth.

He made all the difference in our adventure, and turned it into a truly sublime experience. As we entered the gates of the park, we immediately saw two warthogs mating next to the road. It was a fitting beginning to our circle-of life day. As we drove along the dirt roads, through the African bush lands, we had encounter after unbelievable encounter with animals that we only see in zoos and circuses. An incomplete list includes impala, zebra, wildebeest, boar, warthog, baboons, monkeys, vultures, crocodiles, rhinos, water buffalos, giraffes, elephants, and lions.

It was unbelievable. We saw all of them interacting in their natural habitat, as if we weren’t even there. For them we were just another lumbering animal that posed no real threat. We ended the day by crossing back over the Crocodile River, which forms the southern boarder of the park, and watching the sun set in the African horizon while a flock of beautiful teal birds flew across the sky. It was one of those moments that you want so bad to preserve all of, even though you know that time and distance will dull the memory of it.

The place we are staying at is incredibly posh. We are staying in thatch-roofed bungalows decorated with tribal masks and mahogany. The resort is complete with 3 pools, one of witch has a waterfall, and another of witch has a full 45-second waterslide. We feel like millionaires. But we could be camping for all I care. What is truly amazing about this place is that we can look across the Crocodile River at night and know that across that water is another world that is wild and dangerous, where we suddenly move down a few notches on the food chain. While I am tying this on the large patio of the clubhouse, I just heard a lion roar. Hearing a lion roar at night sends chills up your spine even from behind the electric fence. Now I am looking up at the night sky and seeing the southern cross and hearing dad's voice in your head singing “I have been around the world.” This is unbelievable. When my roommate Dan and I got back from the Safari and were watching the sun set over the beautiful South African hills from the deck of our room, we decided we had to say a prayer of thanksgiving because we didn’t know what else to do with this much amazement. We knelt in our room, and for the longest time, all I could say was thank you. 

May 14, 2007

Hey Family! I finally had a few hours to sit at a computer in a members home and get something posted on the website. Wow! Where do I start? I have had so many unforgetable moments in the last few days that I am starting to forget them. In the one week I have been here, I have sung in seven concerts, spoke in two firesides, stayed with three different families, learned 6 traditional african songs, eaten cow intestine, biltong, and pap, attended church at an all-black congregation, played plenty of american songs on my guitar, learned about both the great injustices and the great compromises that makes South African history so unique, and have fallen in love with the warm, open, singing people of South Africa. I will try to get more postings up that explain what I have done here, but right now it is 3:30am, and I need to sleep some before tomorrow. I love you all very much!

-Matt