Shembe sacred dance, hiking Giant's Castle and sexist battle ground advice

Greetings from Dundee! We have been on a rather fast-paced set of two night stays in a series of locations since I last wrote. First, in Pietermaritzburg we visited Hindu temples and attended a Shembe religious ceremony. While I’ve been to Hindu temples before I have never witnessed the blessing of a new car which involves having the priest circle the vehicle carrying a flaming pumpkin followed by the new owners. Limes are then placed in front of each of the four tires and the driver proceeds to drive back and forth over them until the priest says to stop. The curiousness of this only slightly paled in comparison to the giant pit near us which is filled with burning coals once a year for the annual fire walking ritual. Believers are said to “put themselves in a trance” in order to walk across it (probably 30 feet in length) without burning their feet.

The next day we learned about the Shembe religion, an African Independent Religion started by a prophet Isaiah Shembe. While never formally trained he is said to have had visions from God instructing him on how people should live a godly life. To be honest, we didn’t know what was in store for us when we were invited out to a Shembe service (which takes place all day on Saturdays). Arriving at the end of the ceremony, we were asked to take our shoes off and walk down a rocked filled muddy road (I wished I knew how to get in a trance because it hurt my little feet) where we were invited into what I will describe as a “worship warehouse.” While ceremonies are usually held outside the rain was coming so we were squished into a big open building (no rooms, seats, etc.) where we were seated on straw mats on the floor. Despite the fact that the building looked rather small from the outside, there were hundreds of people already seated on the ground happy to welcome us to their worship ceremony. Since it was the end of what had already been several hours of worshiping, they decided to show us some of their ceremonial sacred dances which involved only men and lots of high stepping foot stamping line dancing while dressed in white robes and animal skins, carrying sticks (see Shembe sacred dance photo attached). By the end of the two days, the social construction of sacredness was all too apparent.

Next we headed to Giant’s Castle an amazingly beautiful area of the Drakensburg Mountains where we took a couple of days to rest, relax and hike. I would strongly encourage anyone who travels to this part of the world to make a trip out to the Drakensburgs (translates into “dragon’s mountains”). The views are breath-taking and hiking is challenging but well worth the views when you make it to the top. The main wild life we saw was elands – large antelope-like creatures who look like really big cows. They are thought to have mythical powers by the bushmen and it is truly a rare sight to see them in the distance on the mountain side. In the two years I’ve been coming to Africa I think I might have seen one other one prior to this visit. We were also barked at by baboons and I made sure to walk with a rock to throw at them in case they got too close (I don’t love baboons…they have big teeth and thumbs, thus the ability to open things). At one point during the two days I was grading quizzes and one of them parked himself in front of the sliding glass door to my chalet. That’s one way to keep me inside grading!

Finally, last night and tonight we spent in Dundee where we visited battlefields all day. I had a vague recollection from the last trip that I didn’t really enjoy the battlefield experience but I couldn’t quite place why. I assumed that it was just too much discussion of Zulus and Anglos fighting or Zulus and Boers fighting…death, brutality, horn shaped attack patterns of Shaka Zulu…blah, blah, blah… but then once our guide started talking I remembered why it annoyed me last time…Pat, our guide, is a sexist pig. I won’t go on too long but the main message he emphasized to the “ladies” in our group was how we have to remember that we are “concentrated fire power” just like the loggerheads the Boers used to fend off the Zulus at Blood River. Not only does the analogy not work but he continued on to elaborate by saying, “You know how you ladies are. When you get ready to go out on a date you get all dressed up to lure in the men. You put on your fishnet stockings and stiletto heels and you are ‘concentrated fire power.’” Apparently Pat has dated…hookers. If this wasn’t offensive enough, he explained polygamy to us by saying to the guys in the group, “You know it really is a good idea. Think about what happens to women as they age and they’ve been popping out those babies they’re not quite the beautiful young thing they used to be before so you just get a younger one.” Ugh! Thanks to Ching (my colleague who isn’t even here anymore) we had a full day with Pat…3 battlefields and lots of sexist advice to give away! Lovely.

On that I’m off. We’re headed to Ulundi next where, last time, we were given a goat for sacrifice by the Zulu chief and I was called scrawny and told I would never get a Zulu man by the mayor. Perhaps with all the ice cream I’ve been eating I’ll be worthy this time (although I have a Botswana man so don’t really need a Zulu one!).
Hope you all are well.
Kristy