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