The Icamagu Institute and our goodbye to the East Cape

We left Bulungula this morning, and it was hard to leave.  We had a small group get up with the sunrise, and others were having heart-tearing goodbyes with our dogs, especially Henry.  He came with us to the mini-buses, and waited around for us, and then as he realized we were leaving, he started walking away.  We could see him up on the hill, and at one point he stopped and looked back at us, and I swear half of us teared up.  That was a hard good-bye!

We bumped out on the winding hills on the rocky roads.  We bumped through pot-holes and the unmistakable canyons of water gullies in the road.  We passed government road crews working on filling in the pot-holes (they have a lot of work to do!), and we passed people just going about their normal morning business:  traditionally dressed women with pots of water on their heads, kids waving to us, cow-herders and shepherds, women picking vegetables from the small garden plots in front of their houses, and many people who were just walking.  There are very few cars here, so most people walk everywhere.  We also passed goats, ducks, geese, dogs, small black bristly pigs, donkeys, horses and cows.  Some of the cows were of the traditional heritage type that were herded by the Xhosa people centuries ago. 

The Xhosa were a people who long ago moved into this area, herding their cows, coming from the North.  When they first arrived, they met with the Bushmen (San) people who were indigenous to the area, and picked up some of their customs and language.  Xhosa as a language has a number of ‘click’ sounds which they got from the Bushmen.  The main clicks are against your cheek (for an X), against your front teeth (for a C) and against the top of your mouth, rather loudly (for a Q). 

Our destination as we left Bulungula was the Icamagu Institute, where we had the opportunity to meet with one of South Africa’s foremost experts on traditional healing, customs, and spiritual beliefs (these are not separate things in Xhosa culture).  Dr. Nokuzola Mndende runs a rural center where her family lives, and where people come for healing, herbs, and information.  She has gathered a lot of traditional knowledge, and because she also has one foot in the Western tradition, she has written and published several books, and has become a government advisor on traditional healing.

We had a tour of the Institute and learned about how people lived inside the roundhouses, with gender and age segregation.  Food was cooked in the center of the house, but there was no center vent, so windows were placed on each side perpendicular to the door.  The smoke would rise up into the central cone and as it got low enough, it would exit through the windows which were placed high up.  It kept smoke just above head level, which helped to keep insects away.  Each house would have a kraal and a garden patch close to the front door, and there would also be a pen for valuable livestock, with the house inside the pen.  People would sleep directly on the floor, on animal skins.  Many people now who live in roundhouses still sleep on the floor but have small roll-up mattresses that they use at night. 

The women who lived at the Institute cooked us an amazing lunch of all traditional Xhosa food.  It was almost completely vegetarian, made with vegetables picked fresh from their garden.  We had mashed pumpkin, a kind of mash made from ground pumpkin seeds, traditional thick lumpy Xhosa beans which are more like chickpeas, spinach stewed with carrots and onions, and fresh chopped cabbage served spicy.  There was a really flavorful sauce for the beans, and some stewed chicken.  They served it with the thick fire cooked Xhosa bread and watermelon that they grew themselves.  It was incredible! 

Later we had the chance to learn about traditional clothes when Morganne and Donato were taken by the ladies and the men to be dressed up as newlyweds.  Morganne had a calf-length cloth skirt and a colorful apron, a thin hair cloth with red tassels, and a white woven shoulder cloth with embroidery, much like some kind of stiff shawl.  Donato wore a long waist cloth, and was shirtless under his beaded vest and long strands of beads.  He had a beaded headband and necktie and carried a carved stick.  The whole time the ladies were dressing Morganne, they were giggling and enjoying themselves.  The wedding party made a grand entrance and we learned how weddings work, and what the roles of the newly married are.  We also learned the etiquette for when a man decides he wants to take a second wife—he has to ask his first wife’s permission, build another house nearby, and convince a woman to be a second wife.  Make no mistake, this is a patriarchal society.  There is no such thing as divorce, and if a woman chooses to leave her marriage, she can go home, but will also be “a woman who left her marriage.”  She can’t marry again and there is some stigma.   Men can leave their marriage, and come back any time with no stigma in either case.

We had the chance to ask about healing, and one of the things we learned was the Xhosas believe that at the heart of all illness is too much mucous.  The way they treat this build-up of deadly mucous is by cleansing the body with a totally alkaline diet.  In particular, they start with 1-2 weeks of a total carrot diet.  After that, the body is more in balance, and they start using herbs and roots to make teas which are taken as medicine.  We asked if this was how they would treat HIV/AIDS, and the answer is yes.  They believe that with a very alkaline diet, and the use of these medicinal teas, they can keep the viral count down, or possibly even cure HIV/AIDS.  Does this work or not?  It may be a moot point, as for many rural people there is no possibility of accessing anti-retroviral drugs, and traditional folk medicine is all they have. 

After we left the Institute it was a race to the Umthata airport, and a big goodbye to our amazing local guides Vilile Ndlumbini and Soseko Yelani.  They drove our minibuses, hung out with us, gave us lots of local information, answered questions, joked and teased, chased off dogs or fed them as the occasion demanded, and were generally both really great guys.  This part of our class has been truly  spectacular, and it feels like this big goodbye to the Transvaal is a lot of goodbyes all wrapped into one.