Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Quno, Nelson Mandela's childhood village

We first arrived in the Transvaal region of South Africa by flying into the tiny airport of Umthata.  This small city is starting to boom, with lots of new multi-room squared houses (instead of the traditional roundhouses) and a big university (Walter Sisulu University, named for Nelson Mandela’s mentor).  Apparently, many young people who moved away to get jobs in the bigger cities are now middle-aged and want to come back, and are returning with enough money to build their families much larger houses.  On the scale of things, these are still relatively small houses, but it is unmistakable that there is a sense of an influx of money and change.  Because this area was a former homeland, it is very heavily dominated by the Xhosa people.  We see very few white people here.  And Xhosa culture is all around us.  The married women have their hair tied up in scarves, and many have their faces painted with designs.  They wear ankle length skirts, with t-shirts or long sleeved shirts, and a colorful blanket or cloth tied around their waists.  Most of the younger women and teens are wearing fully westernized clothes, jeans, etc.  Umthata has a mix of old shops and big shiny new chain stores.  There’s even a mini mall.

Driving out of Umthata it quickly became very rural, with big round rolling hills and the faint promise of ocean air.  We were now traveling by mini-bus, the same as regular South Africans.  These mini-buses have 5 rows of seats, and we are packed into two of them, with a trailer hauling our luggage behind.  Our destination was Quno, the small village where Nelson Mandela grew up and where he is buried.  This tiny rural village is still remote and is mostly roundhouses, but more and more roundhouses are being replaced by small squared houses.  The main road runs behind the village, and across the street is the home Mandela built for himself and his family after he was released from prison.  That house is large with a guarded gate and a fence.  But the village is open, and the kraal for Mandela’s ancestors is still there, even though his mother’s roundhouse is long gone.  Kraals are fenced off areas where the family are buried, and each family plot has their own kraal in the yard, usually right in front. Whenever there are big decisions to be made, all the men go into the kraal to conduct their business, as a way of inviting the spirits of the ancestors to the table and perhaps as a way to remember that the family reputation may be on the line.  This little village has just built a brand new school, so it will likely start to develop even more as the children are educated locally.

Quno is on a small rounding hill, with a long gentle incline into a small valley with a little stream winding through.  The hills around it are all slightly bigger, including the large hill where Mandela is buried up above the village.  They have built a small tower with a red light on top, and the light stays lit year round as a memorial.  While Mandela spent the years of his childhood here, the rest of his life including his education in his teens was elsewhere.  But Mandela always called Quno home.


It was pretty amazing to stand in this place, with the dusty dirt roads and the chickens and the friendly dogs, looking out into the green valley and off to the rounding hills, and think this is the same view Nelson Mandela saw every day when he was growing up.  Quno is a truly beautiful place with a sense of calmness that felt like what peace must feel like if it was vested in a place.   

No comments:

Post a Comment