I wrote these letters in South Africa in the summer of 2015 while working on a month-long research exchange project with Stellenbosch University and the Cape Town Peninsula University of Technology. Under the guidance of Dr. Ron Eglash, I conducted research into solar energy technology and its utility for urban farmers in the townships outside of Cape Town.
Finally at the dormitory. It’s 1:30 am here, but I slept so much on the planes that I’m not tired at all now. All the other guys went to bed already.
We got picked up from the airport by a student here named Alvin. Ron (our professor) asked him a bunch of questions about how to use our reflector as a product to put money into the hands of black people in South Africa, & from their conversation it seems like racism is still a powerful force in this country, not just in peoples’ dispositions, but in the political, financial, & cultural landscape. I don’t know exactly when apartheid was abolished (sometime in the 90s?), but its effects are far from over. I’m curious, & a little apprehensive, to see how that plays out for us, how people treat us because we’re white, what white people vs. black people think about our endeavor to stimulate the black economy & avoid creating a product that only allows the rich whites to get richer.
One of Ron’s ideas was to establish something similar to Fair Trade, which ensures that all products bearing its symbol are harvested, cultivated, etc. by workers who are of age & paid a reasonable wage. In his version, we (or somebody) make sure that a product, such as ceramic beads fired in a kiln powered by the solar reflector, is made by black artisans & sold by a black-owned business to ensure that the money goes into their community.
I can see how this would be unpopular amongst the white community, a large percentage of which is old enough to remember when it was the sole ruler of the country, despite comprising only 10% of the population (80% being black). Ron has said that a common attitude amongst whites here is that any area or community with black people should be avoided on account of danger—Johann, our host, even told us tonight: “People lock their doors around here. If they don’t, they get carried away.” He laughed as he said it. It should be noted here that Johann is a white man of at least fifty years. I wonder how true that is, and how much of it is white paranoia, a cultural narrative designed to keep apartheid alive by instilling a fear of the black man to keep him from power or equality.
Since I’ve gotten here, I’ve felt like everything I’ve seen in the town of Stellenbosch has been very American. There are swanky restaurants all around, little shops, cafes, bars, McDonald’s, Domino’s, etc. I’m basically staying in the freshman dorms at RPI (except without heating—the beds are freezing at night), and the university has a pretty, manicured campus. It’s been strange to have traveled for 31 hours to arrive in a place that’s just like home.
Our expedition today finally broke that feeling. We took a train into Cape Town & met a professor that Ron knows from the Cape Town Peninsula University of Technology (or something like that). She brought us to a van parked outside the station, where a group of her students were waiting. With them, we traveled to a township just outside of the city proper to interview several people who run small farms called “urban gardens” to gauge their needs & find out how we could apply the research we’ve done to the problems they face.
The first farm we stopped at was little more than a plot of soil by the highway with a fence around it and a single dilapidated shack. One of the students had to translate our conversation with the women who ran the farm into Xhosa (KOH-sa), the indigenous language that utilizes clicks & “tsk” sounds. They were mostly in need of manpower and farming equipment (they did all of their gardening in their regular clothes, without gloves, and sometimes with their bare hands). The craziest thing to me about this stop was the township itself. It was a village, practically a city of handmade dwellings. Most of the houses were made of corrugated tin or aluminum & looked to be only one or two rooms. Fences were made of patchwork scrapwood, aluminum sheets, & razor wire. Alleyways between houses were barely wide enough for one person to pass through. Dogs and goats roamed around freely. I hardly paid attention to the interview that was going on because I was so mesmerized by this scene.
We visited three more farms over the course of the day, & they were all pretty much the same. Everyone had issues with irrigation, soil fertility, manpower, & security. After we finished at the last farm, the Cape Town professor took us to a butcher/smokehouse called Mzoli’s. “Everyone in Cape Town goes to Mzoli’s,” she assured us. We ordered a huge amount of pork, chicken, beef, & sausage for everyone—sixteen of us in total. When the food came out, we all got Styrofoam containers, packed them with meat & ground maize called papa, and ate ravenously with our hands (there were no utensils). This was the point, eating an enormous pork chop with my bare hands in a street of tin houses, that I realized, “wow, I’m definitely in Africa.”
We all rode back on the bus, exhausted & content. I was shocked when we dropped off two of the students we’d just spend the day with in the streets of that same township. To think that those two girls, so well-dressed, well-spoken, intelligent, educated, grew up in the same streets we’d been passing through & astounded by all day—I can’t even begin to describe it.
From what I’d heard about the townships before (basically just “don’t go there”), I expected them to be a dangerous, hardened, disgusting place, but the people we met at every ramshackle farm were so nice, so polite, friendly, inviting, warm . . .
I don’t know. My mind is blown and exhausted.
We spent the Fourth of July exploring the town of Stellenbosch, getting souvenirs, talking to the shopowners, asking where to buy fireworks. The owners of the gift shops were all black, and it seemed like all of their wares were made in the townships. One owner told us there was a township a fifteen minute walk from where we were. He was selling small sculpture pieces that depicted a scene in a township, made of scrap materials like tin cans, soda cans, wrappers, etc. (à la Berni in Buenos Aires). I thought his choice of medium was really striking. I got to do some haggling.
We celebrated the day by playing kan jam in the courtyard & drinking beer for a while, & eventually went out to dinner & a bar. By the end of the night, everyone in Stellenbosch knew it was American Independence Day. When we got home, I got my guitar out & we sang the national anthem (poorly), and then jammed out with a trash can as a drum. The other tenants in the dorm probably hate us, but really it’s just payback for the late-night trumpet and early-morning clarinet practice we’ve been listening to all week.
Today, I set out with Connor & Greg on a bike expedition towards the mountains, away from Stellenbosch. It only took a short ride to get out of the town and into proper suburbs, & beyond that there was only a two-lane road lined with tall, white trees, farms, & vineyards on either side. Peaks towered over the distant white buildings. We pedaled uphill for a long time, and eventually ditched the bikes and continued on foot. It looked like the road would take us right to the base of the mountain. We walked along private farms with long driveways & miles of electric fencing & razor wire. There wasn’t an inch of unprotected property line; these people are serious about security.
A fork in the road ended our long uphill stroll: one way, a private farm, and the other, a driveway with a sign reading “The Hydro.” The latter looked more inviting, so we started up the driveway. A security guard posted at the gate immediately stopped us, asked us what we were doing. “A walk?” he said quizzically. I guess they don’t see many pedestrians all the way out there. We talked to him for a while, found out we were at a private spa, and that we couldn’t get a glass of water from him. He didn’t know any way to the base of the mountain, but he was a cool guy.
The ride back was incredible. I didn’t have to touch the pedals or handlebars once. The hill took us all the way back to the suburb, with hills and greens and barren grape trees flying past on either side.
Tomorrow we have to get supplies & start building the reflector. I’m excited to make improvements on the rickety design we came up with in Troy, but we really need to keep brainstorming what applications it could have. The people here need water, functional irrigation, and agricultural subsidy; I don’t want to leave them with a shiny reflector that doesn’t help at all.
We’re at the Cape Bentonite Mine waiting for the workers to come off lunch break so we can pick up our 80 kg of zeolite. We drove 3 hrs 45 min in a van from Stellenbosch. The start of the drive took us up a mountain pass similar to those in Bolivia (though not nearly as tall or harrowing). We went right between the peaks all smoky & craggy & covered in little brush Ron said was just like that from California. Through the mountains we came out onto long rolling hills of tall grass & short trees & ponds. It’s so easy to picture some hunched over furry human from a million years ago walking across these plains, looking up at these mountains, drinking from that pond, hunting after that llama. You’d be crazy not to see it.
Below the hills was a lot a lot a lot of farmland, apple trees & pear trees & apricot trees as far as the eye could see & maybe right up to the bottom of those mountains. We got out at a berry farm somewhere along the way & pet their dogs (black lab & a golden retriever) & sampled all their jams (of which fig was the best, 30 rand for the jar).
Now from where I sit (at this wobbly stone table outside the mine where the workers probably take cigarette breaks) I’m on the edge of a huge endless field with some cows grazing way out in the distance & a couple of those short shrubby trees without branches you’d only see in Africa on the tops of the hills that make up the horizon line. Right next to me are a couple of knee high trees with little yellow fruit that feel like shaved peaches but are firm like an unripe tomato. If I look up & way way out there’s a sunyellow field of canola about 20 km away (which is a rough guess, my eye sees in miles).
A big guy in a hardhat and a beige fleece vest comes out & greets us & he shows us around the grounds & there’s massive piles of clay & dump trucks & Caterpillar excavators zooming all around them. He feeds us some bentonite, it has a nutty texture & flavor but is crazy dry, what do you expect from a rock. He points to a divot in the hillside a few miles away & tells us that’s the quarry, & that bentonite is made from old volcanic ash from when all this was an ocean. Just to think, a hundred million years ago, there were volcanoes spewing lava & hot ash & dust all over the place, covering the ground for hundreds of miles, unheard, unseen by any human eyes, no news reports, no headlines, no 20 DEAD IN SOUTH AFRICAN VOLCANO, no charities or kids wearing a certain color to school to raise awareness, just an endless, ceaseless series of eruptions in the silent dark unsubstantiatable blackness of prehistory that not one of us can prove or attest or confirm other than the fact that we’re standing here now some countless eons later talking to this guy while his worker zips over on a forklift to load our bags of zeolite into the back of the van.
Up & over the dirt mounds I can see the dark low clouds brooding over the mountains in the distance, Johann says they’re going to hit us later this week. Time to go back to the university & figure out what to do with all this stuff.
The rain’s coming down all gentle today, nice to stand out in a jacket but enough to make you squint your eyes if you’re biking fast. There’s fog all around the mountains, pretty to look at from all the way down here. After last night the cool air feels good on my skin hot & dry & almost feverish. Everyone’s tired & I’m sleeping as I write this.
We were all drunk & David & I were talking to a dude with a bun & a guy in a wheelchair outside the club who were trying to sell us coke. A British sounding black dude was in on the deal somehow & sweet talking us, telling us over & over how his dad’s a cop, how he knows the connect by name, as if it’s supposed to mean anything. He started talking money & I told him I wasn’t paying until it was in my hand & that I didn’t think this guy was ever coming if we paid now to help buy it. He got all offended & pissy (“I’m making no money off this,” he kept saying) & told me “This is South Africa, I don’t know how you do things in America but this is South Africa” & I told him in America you don’t give money to people you meet on the street telling you to trust them. He buggered off & we didn’t see him again but eventually surprisingly the dude actually did come & this girl got in his car & bought it right out front of the club. Then we crossed the street & sat on the secluded stoop of some random academic building & cut up lines on the stone railing. On the walk over the guy in the wheelchair said to me & David pretty unprompted “I don’t wanna have to get out of this chair & fuck you up” & I had no idea where it came from but it had me rollicking with laughter.
So we’re over there doing lines (cut with my Stellenbosch student ID) & two campus security guys walk past so the bun guy deftly covers the line with his leg & the wheelchair dude puts the girl on his lap & pops a wheelie & she squeals & it looks like we’re just a couple of drunk students having a grand old time until they turn the corner & we finish the pile. We get back in the club & start dancing but there’s no space now everyone’s packed in like sardines & no one’s moving because the DJ isn’t playing songs just a single monotonous beat of nothingness & I start getting real “close” & claustrophobic & hot & I look at the ceiling too close I can’t breathe find the stairs there’s the wheelchair guy again how the hell did he get up those stairs. I lean against the railing gasping for air & everyone agrees this place sucks, let’s find a different one next time.
The walk back is nice & warm & I'm feeling great & the numbness in my front teeth is starting to wear off. We get the bikes & I take mine as fast as it will go because I'm exhilarated by the speed & I swerve in big Ss like I always do with my hands in my sweatshirt pockets. When we get home we hang out in my room for a long time & then Connor goes to bed but lost his key so he goes all the way back to the bar & then to campus security while we sleep.
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As soon as the rain stops we all ride out to the park. We get to the bridge & find a trail that looks like it heads up the mountain so we start walking. There’s some sign about leopards being in the area & how they hunt at dawn & dusk. It’s already 3:30 so I’m thinking about that. When the air is still it’s hot hiking up so I take off my jacket, but then the rain starts down again & I have to put it back on. Eventually I just leave it off & get rained on because it feels good to have that cool pure air run through me & droplets in my hair.
We pass by the old burned out brick foundation of a house & we’re up in the clouds now, there’s rain & heavy wind & they envelop us everywhere & it all feels so amazing on my hot skin & the summit feels good on my drained mind. We look out over Stellenbosch through the clouds when we can, sometimes it’s too thick to see & it’s just us, four boys from Troy, New York alone from the whole world on top of this South African mountain.
The hike down is fast & we ride home downhill, the bike seems to pedal itself as the sun peeks at us through one sleepy, drooping eyelid.
We get up real real early & get to the train station before the sun rises looking behind us down the tracks the whole way in case by some fluke the train’s on time & we have to run for it. Half asleep the whole ride out & we get to Cape Town station at 9:30. Hop out & walk around, not a single cloud in the crazy blue sunny winter sky.
After feeling our way around we find a map (still crumpled in my jacket pocket as I write this) & with it a huge crafts market & the city castle. We tour around & look out at the city from the open green ramparts & are floored by the massive domineering Table Mountain rising up to its titular flat peak. We want food & go out to the marina, five rand for the colectivo-style van bus. Get a huge seafood platter & great wine & milkshakes at a patio on the bay, watching boats zoom in & out all the time.
Pressed for time now we take a taxi to the cable car station up to the top of Table Mountain. Feels like we’re driving through LA with the city rapidly fading into palm-lined hills & big white houses, only with barbed wire everywhere. We get up to the top & run over to the sheer boulder cliffs & I see probably the most incredible sight of my life the massive tiny city the bastion of Good Hope—an amazing mouthwatering sight for months-tired imperial sailor’s eyes—crammed under this mountain practically spilling out to sea, the Ferris wheel we saw towering above us at the harbor is barely a dime in size & not even 45 minutes have passed. We climb all over the rocks & embrace the cold welcome blowing wind until it forms so many clouds all around us that we can barely see ten feet ahead. So we take the cable car down through the mist & a taxi to the train station & run to the platform only to find the damn thing left right on time 5:35 on the dot—just one minute ago.
We’re stuck here in the city now & the sunlight’s fading & Hillary disappears in search of a chai latte as we ask a security guard how to get home & he totally hooks us up so after twenty-five minutes scouring the whole concourse we find her & get in another colectivo that will bring us home. There’s absolutely no space at all on this van & I’m squatting between rows of seats holding onto David’s headrest in front of me for dear life as the driver flies at 70+ mph through the city boulevards, his cohort at my side opening the sliding door yelling “yabo, yabo!” (“taxi!” I assume) at everyone on the street—timing the closing of the door with the driver’s pressing of the clutch between first and second gear in perfect synchronization. Finally some people get off & I slide into a seat shoulder to shoulder between locals & I watch in accepting amazement as we weave through traffic to the beat of the reverberating dubstep remixes of Bruno Mars songs, the driver slowing only for potential passengers or to light his cigarette.
At the last stop everyone gets off & it’s just us now, he takes us privately to Stellenbosch & I lie my head halfway out the window & let the cool rushing air envelop my hair as we fly past the street lines & high beams & dark silent mountains & Jupiter & Venus & the Earthshining crescent moon setting into the blood orange twilit sky.