Grahamstown

Right, so I spent the weekend in Grahamstown, a 12 hour (!) bus ride up the coast towards Mozambique. Or, in my case, an 18 hour bus journey as we were plagued on the outward leg by breakdowns. Welcome to Africa.

I left on the Thursday evening. The bus was late getting out of the station. It waited just outside town for an hour and a half for a mechanic to come and tie shut a door that wouldn't close with a piece of string. And at midnight, we were stranded in Mossel Bay (just under half way) for three hours waiting for a replacement bus after ours had filled up with smoke.

I managed to get to G-town in the end, after a long story involving rides with people from the bus company the last 100 kms which I won't bore you with. Once there, however, I met up with Hanna who I know from London. She's in East London (on the SA coast, not Whitechapel) doing some development work and was in G-town visiting others from her Swedish development course. So with the numerous Swedish jazz bands that were there visiting, there was a large Scando contingent.

Grahamstown looks like a Home Counties village that has been uprooted and moved to the South African veld. It's a university town, and once a year it plays host to the biggest arts festival of SA, possibly of the continent. It's a little bit like the Edinburgh festival in terms of what's on, and people come from far and wide to see plays, comedy, music shows.

We saw a modern dance company, a theatre production, a jazz band. But the best, I think we all agreed, was sitting in the festival field with a beer watching some random Zulu tribal dance while the sun beat down hard on our faces. Still, it wasn't warm. At night, it creeps below 10 degrees in Grahamstown, and there is no heating.

Hanna and co's SA experience is very different from my own. They see what I don't the poverty, the villages, the hiv/aids and so on. It is amazing how it all exists side by side. One girl had been at the pre-circumcision party for a boy in a local tribe. Xhosa boys are circumsised in their teens, when they officially become men. And it's a big deal. They have to spend weeks alone in the bush after the 'procedure' which is done with no anasthaetics. And infection can be a problem, leading to death.

I was immensely impressed by how one of Hannas friends in particular - Markus - had learned a bit of Xhosa, one of the main non-colonial languages of SA. This is the click language I spoke of before. There is a click that sounds like you are trying to move a horse, a 'tsk' noise that sounds very disapproving but isn't, and a Q click which sounds like a wine bottle being uncorked. He could do them all, and without contorting his face to look constipated, which the rest of us did.

And going through the game reserves between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown, I even managed to do some roadside safari. I saw wildebeest, zebra, antelopes and to my joy some giraffes.

The busride home was not so eventful. At 6.30 this morning we pulled in to Cape Town station and I went home to get a well deserved rest before coming in to work. That was only half an hour late. But next year, I think I'll catch a plane.

Some photos: Hanna looking pretty; Actors exploring their masculinity (yes, seriously); Apparently you can train your man; Markus who was good with click languages; The street where the swedes lived. A bit Desperate Housewives?; Zulu dancer; and YOURS TRULY.