Dispatch Cape Town: Tuesday, May 24

It was my mistake, and I take full responsibility, and I’m sorry. That was my speech to Jeanne a few minutes ago. I misread our rental car return time and our ticket a week ago, and I determined that we had to be at the Cape Town airport at 11:30 a.m. when we actually return the car at 2:30 p.m. and the flight is at 7:30 p.m. So here we are at another airport—a really pleasant one though I argued—instead of a few more hours exploring (meaning shopping) in Cape Town.
But let me back up, as usual. Sunday morning we woke up in our Franschhoek cottage, had some breakfast (our newfound really good muesli and yoghurt and boiled eggs), packed up (again), and headed for church in Stellenbosh, just 30 minutes away. We had arranged to meet Al Plantinga’s brother Terry and his wife Jane for church that morning, and lunch at their home afterward. Terry has been living and working in SA since the early 90’s. Jane, a native South African, had fled “(wiping the dust of my feet”) after college, and decided to come back with Terry, who fell in love with the country, when it was clear that apartheid was over, feeling a deep urge to participate in building a new society.
We met then in the beautiful and historical old university town of Stellenbosch in a small United Church just around the corner from the huge Dutch Reformed Church. The United Church is a union of the Bantu Congregational Church and the Presbyterian Church of SA (begun by Scottish immigrants back in the 19th century). In other words, the church is involved in a continuing effort to bring together Reformed Christians across racial and denominational lines. Jane is the Education Director of the congregation, Terry teaches a class, and son Adam plays clarinet in the orchestra.
It was interesting to be back in a Protestant church for the first time in nearly two months of traveling. The service began when an elder brought the Pulpit Bible to the lectern while everyone stood—no question about what’s important here. David, who’s been Pastor there for about the same time I’ve been in South Bend, appeared in a long Presbyterian robe with the distinctive bow at the neck, but all white instead of the typical black. The service began with the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy,” which warmed our souls to sing on that Trinity Sunday (Holy, holy holy, blessed Trinity.” One difference Jeanne and I both noticed was that the service was very much Pastor led, with very little participation from the congregation apart from the singing. I believe this is typical of Scottish Presbyterians, and David was very well prepared with slow and deeply thoughtful prayers all through the service. He preached on Deuteronomy 5 and Matthew 5, focusing on Jesus’ statement that he had come not to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.” The sermon very rightly and evangelically focused on the person of Jesus as the one who keeps the law perfectly on our behalf and enables us to follow, rather than as the one who demands that we keep his new and stricter version of it. It was deeply a thought and deeply felt sermon which we appreciated. Of course, there was a hole in the service, especially after traveling so long among Catholics—you guessed it, the Eucharist. We’ve always loved the weekly Eucharist, and this trip has made that even more important. This trip has also often given us the daily meal of Christ’s presence.
After the service, and a brief tour of the old town, Terry took us to his home up in the foothills above Stellenbosch. What a lovely setting! No matter Terry had invited us to see his little corner of paradise, Not that it was ostentatious at all, but a simple dwelling, surrounded by overgrown gardens, with a view of granite peaks pointing straight up for the valley. There were a few others for lunch, including a woman whose husband had been murdered a couple of months earlier in his office at the University of Cape Town by a disaffected employee.
Jeanne was having trouble keeping up with her folks by phone, and it looked for a little while that she might have to return early. Terry and Jane were so hospitable, sympathetic, and helpful with their advice (it turned out that Jeanne does not have to interrupt the trip early at least at this time). The next day Terry discovered that his own aged mother (and Al’s) was gravely ill.
Sunday afternoon it was off to Cape Town, the third great city of South Africa after Jo’burg and Durban. This remarkable metropolis is built around several very large granite peaked mountains that occupy at least 40% of the city’s land. This, of course, is Cape Town’s most appealing feature, and every visitor must take the cable car (or the four hour hike) up Table Mountain for a spectacular view of the city and all the way down Cape Horn to the tip. That’s true when the weather’s good, which it was not during most of our visit. We did take the cable car up yesterday in the late afternoon when it looked clear at the top. About 15 minutes after we got to the top the cold winds brought in the dark heavy rain clouds that sometimes cover the mountain like a “tablecloth,” and then they parted for a spectacular view complete with rainbow.
We shopped, went sightseeing, just watched people on the street, bought some food for a destitute woman and her baby, and took in the ambience of the city. Like Durban, terrible shanty towns spread out onto the “flats” south and east of the city, which you can see from the highway—miles of them, with “street” lights and miles of wires looping off them to the huts below. One of the biggest of South Africa’s problems is the 40% or so unemployment, and its biggest source is that black South Africans were displaced from their rural homelands to work in the mines by whites, breaking their ties with the land and agriculture. So now they swarm to the cities, trying to get ahead. The conditions are appalling, but the spirit of the people is amazing.
Well, the flight time is finally slowly getting closer, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to reflect and catch up on my blog. We’re off to London and then Scotland, where we’ll spend a day with the Torrances in St. Andrews who many of you remember, and then to Iona on Saturday.

Clouds and mountains from Table Mountain--Cape Town

lowSA Capetown view frm Table Mt 3,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Len on the Robberg Trail at Plettenberg Bay

lowSA Plet Roberg Len on trail,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Dispatch from Franschhoek: Sunday, May 22

It’s early Sunday morning, before dawn, Trinity Sunday. We’re in a cozy little cottage in the town of Franschhoek about 40 miles from Cape Town South Africa. Later this morning we’ll be driving about 15 miles to Stellenbosch to join Terry Plantinga and his wife for church. You probably recognize the name, and sure enough, Terry is Al’s brother, who’s been living here for a number of years. We got acquainted by email at Al’s suggestion when we were planning the South Africa portion of our trip, and Terry offered us some good advice.
That’s where we are, now I need to back up a bit. I should warn you that this is going to be a bit of a travelogue since we’ve been on the road from place to place these last few days. So if that’s not your taste in blogology, skip to the next dispatch.
Flying out of Durban we began the last stage of our African journey, from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town along the Eastern Cape coast. If you look at your map, you will see that traveling from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town involves moving from east to west, which surprised me a bit. I had in my mind that the Cape Town was at the southern tip of the Africa, but, in it’s not, and the whole southern tip of Africa (the Eastern Cape region) is quite wide with Cape Town is at the western end. And the distances are more than we bargained for, which meant that we spent more time yesterday behind the wheel than we like to, though the scenery was magnificent.
We arrived at Port Elizabeth from warm, sunny Durban on a relatively cold and rainy Wednesday afternoon. Port Elizabeth is at the eastern end of what’s called the “Garden Route,” a dramatically rugged section of coastline bordered by mountains on the north and a series of lovely bays and beaches on the coast. After picking up our rental car at the airport, we drove west along the coast an hour or so to Jeffrey’s Bay on a peninsula jutting into the Indian Ocean. It was still cloudy and chilly (I’m talking Mediterranean chilly here not South Bend-- 55 to 60 degrees) when we woke Thursday morning, so we decided to drive on while the skies gradually cleared, as we often do with no specific destination in mind. The “Garden Route” seems an apt name for the coastal road, offering dramatic views of the ocean, craggy mountain peaks, deep rocky gorges where the rivers cut across the land to the sea, with glorious blooming flowers in every town along the way. This particular section of the coast also has sections of virgin coastal forest, and we stopped at one spot that day to take a two-hour hike into the deep forest up a mountainside with tall trees above and huge ferns spread on the forest floor. It reminded us in some ways of the western coast of New Zealand.
Mid afternoon we rounded a corner of the road and saw below us the sandy beach and white-capped waves of Plettenberg Bay, a town called the St. Tropez of the Garden Route, and immediately decided that this was our destination for the day. We didn’t know if that meant St. Tropez expensive, or St. Tropez beautiful. As usual we found an excellent backpackers place in the middle of town, just a walk to the beach. After exploring the town a bit we returned to our great room with a soft duvet and thick white towels, not typical of the backpacker level of accommodations, to settle down for an evening of talking and reading. Not wanting to cook that night, and, believe it or not, getting tired of going out to restaurants, we ordered out for one of those fabulous pizzas we only seem to find outside the U. S., smothered in an unusual and delicious variety of toppings—this one with lots of fresh tuna, blue cheese, and red pepper.
Fortunately, the next morning was sunny and bright, and we had been thinking about hiking the Robberg Peninsula Park , a big rock extending a couple miles out into the Indian Ocean on the tip of the Plettenberg Bay. It turned out to be a great hike, from walking along narrow paths over ocean cliffs to traversing secluded beaches. At one point the waves were so enticing that I stepped behind a rock, stripped down to my BVDs (looks just like the kind of thing the Germans wear on the beach all the time) and jumped into the surf. Water that had seemed quite mild putting my hand in the surf turned out to be numbingly cold—but in a few minutes I was splashing and body surfing in the waves. We ended the hike with a picnic on a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean with the surf pounding below. What a way to spend the morning.
But that was only the first of our adventures for the day. We had been talking about going into a section of the Eastern Cape over a mountain pass called the “Klein Karoo,” or Little Karoo, a much drier and mountainous landscape than the coast. So over lunch we consulted a map (you see how we carefully plan our routes) and, sure enough, there was a road right up through the Prince Albert Pass (the bonnie prince had once shot an now extinct elephant in the pass). It did appear to be partially unpaved, but it can’t be all that bad, considering the high quality of South African roads we’d seen so far. It wasn’t bad to start, but within a few kilometers it turned into more of a logging road with potholes, stones rather than gravel, and steep drop-offs—in other words, 4-wheel drive road. But through my skillful driving and Jeanne’s warning screams, we made it. And we were so glad we did it. We passed through the most magnificent mountain scenery, with green valleys, waterfalls, and even a couple of trucks whole drivers laughingly shook their heads at out Nissan sedan, which came through unscathed except for a cake of mud.
The Karoo is strikingly different than the coastal region, and certainly different than the Durban area. Geographically, it’s arid, watered by several rivers enriched by little rainfall. It’s mostly cattle and ostrich farms, while farther west, where there’s a lot more water, the valleys have orchards and the beginning of the vineyard region. Culturally it quite different as well—this is Afrikaner territory, and most of the signs are in English and Africans or just Africans. The original Dutch settlers from the 16th century gradually pushed up the Breed River valley and beyond to settle the Karoo.
We stopped for the night in a town called Oudtschoorn. It seemed immediately Dutch, with the white stucco and decorations typical of the cape Dutch, adapted from their homeland way back in the 17th century. As usual, we had no reservation but the info booth in the town pointed us to a wonderful B and B on the outskirts run by a Mr. Meyer (I can’t remember his first name), a liberal middle aged Africaner, who specialized in indigenous plants and did tours with great old Range Rover Discovery 4x4s. He had built a lovely brick guesthouse with a wrap-around veranda overlooking his flowering indigenous garden. We’ve stayed at so many places here that we wished we could just settle in for a few days and enjoy—but we had to push on to Cape Town.
The next day—Saturday we drove the little Karoo, passing through flat deserts surrounded by mountains, lovely passes, and finally down into the wine country for which the Eastern Cape is so famous. Mr. Meyer had directed us on a special route we wouldn’t have known to Franschhoek. It approaches the town over a gorgeous mountain pass, so that you see the town like a jewel in a valley filled with vineyards.
Franschhoek is known as the “gastronomical capital of South Africa.” With 10 of SA’s best restaurants and chefs, and all this for a town of a thousand people. You can only guess why Jeanne, after carefully studying our trusty “Lonely Planet” guidebook slipped this place in as a must-see on our trip. The whole main street is nearly one long line of great restaurants, mostly French, since, as you can guess by the name (Franschhhoek) it was originally settled by French Huguenots. We had a great dinner (and some great Cape wine) in a 17th century building seated near a huge blazing fireplace. From there we settled into our little cottage and couldn’t keep our eyes open after five pages.

Our safari tent camp at Imfolozi Game Reserve

SA Imf camp bedrmlow,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Mother and kid giraffe at Imfolozi Game Reserve

SA low Imf Giraffes,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Dispatch from Mtubatuba: Tuesday, May 18

I’m not sure I can pronounce it yet either, but it’s a wild west sort of town located in northern Kwa Zulu Natal Province. Strangely enough, we’re staying at what is without a doubt the best “backpackers” place yet—a garden-like place with a pool, and our room was the size of half a house. Of course it was also spotlighted, patrolled by two dogs and razor wired, but that’s “normal” here.
What brought us here is the real story. We just got done with two and a half days of the most thrilling and memorable part of our trip so far, a visit to the Hluweluwe/Imfolozi Game Reserve (I can do the Imfolozi but I’ve given up on a real Zulu pronunciation of Hluweluwe, except that it begins with a “Shah” sound. This is the oldest gamed reserve in South African dating from 1895, located in the heart of what used to be the hunting reserve of the Zulu kings. Hundreds of square miles of bush, most of it very hilly, even mountainous, with a breathtaking concentration of animals and birds in their natural habitat.
We had read all about the park, but were overwhelmed by it’s vast beauty and teeming wildlife. We had driven about three kilometers into the park when, having seen nothing yet, I jokingly said to Jeanne, “Well, let’s just turn around a get our money back.” Before the words were out of my mouth we rounded a corner in the narrow paved road and a giraffe, mother and baby, stood tall and serene no more than 10 feet off the road. The mother was tending her young one, actually cleaning her butt after a dump. We sat there for ten minutes or so before we could bring ourselves to move on. Both of us had tears in our eyes. We had, of course, seen giraffe in zoos, but it’s an entirely different experience to watch them close up in their natural habitat. And that was only the beginning. That afternoon we spotted elephant, baboon, zebra, and the beautiful impala (who became so common as to be utterly unremarkable) most at very close range.
We headed first to the northern part of the park for a Sunday buffet at the Hilltop Camp, the high end place to stay in the park with lots of facilities, including a full restaurant that served an excellent buffet, including curried crocodile (of course it tasted like chicken). Then we turned south to the Mpila camp, in the more primitive southern part of the reserve where the roads were mostly dirt (we remarked how many people were driving Land Rovers and other 4x4s but learned why when we had to turn around because our Nissan couldn’t negotiate the rocks on one of the “loop” roads). Back in Durban we had reserved what’s called a “safari tent” lodging at Mpila. The safari tent is literally a tent, at least on top, built on a wood platform off the ground, consisting of two parts, a sleeping tent, with good beds all made up (with mosquito netting), and a complete bath on the back with hot shower. Walking a wood deck around a corner is our private kitchen tent with stove, fridge (with a lock to keep the monkeys out of it), and sink. There was a picnic table on the deck between the two areas. It was primitive and luxurious at the same time. We sat out on the deck after a simple meal watching the sun set through the low bush trees with an orange and pink glow, amid the grunts of monkeys and the grass chewing impala, and just thanked God, Lilly, and all of you for our being able to be there.
We had electricity till 9 pm, so there was light to wash dishes and read a bit before bed. Our evening prayers that Pentecost night included Psalm 104 with its vivid images of God caring for the teeming wildlife:
You make the darkness and it is night,
when all the animals of the forest come creeping out.
The young lions roar for their prey,
seeking their food from God.
When the sun rises they withdraw
And lie in the dens.
Then the lights went out and it was DARK, with hardly any moon, the canopy of stars splashed brightly across the sky like a Van Gogh.
The next day we spent driving the mostly dirt roads of the southern half of the reserve. The big rule was that you never left your car, as tempting as it was, because many of the animals could be dangerous if humans got too close. But it mattered little. From our open car windows we saw all the animals above, and that day added white rhino sloshing in a mud pool twenty feel from the car a couple of elephants on the road, with us driving slowly at a respectable distance behind. Elephants are the most destructive animals in the park just ripping at tree limbs for food, and even pushing down whole trees to eat a little of the sweet roots, taking up a huge range of habitat for their destructive ways. We also frequently spotted wart hog, wildebeest, buffalo, and a wide range of antelope. It was so exciting because you never knew what sort of wildlife might be around the next bend in the road.
The next morning, our last in the park, we had booked a guided walk with a ranger at 6am. We rose at 5, got dressed in the cold and dark (electricity didn’t go on till 8am), and felt our way around the kitchen tent for the matches to light the stove to make some instant coffee and have a boiled egg. We were a little punchy since we had been wrenched awake at 3 am by the sound of an elephant near the tent ripping trees apart right on top of the tent, or so it sounded (we didn’t get out to investigate). We drove up to the office, joining two young men from the Netherlands for our hike. Our guide, an older Zulu man walked up (we could tell he was the guide from the rifle slung over his shoulder. We drove down to a nearby parking area off the road, and set out in the bush just at sunrise.
It was a completely different kind of experience to actually walk the bush rather than drive the roads, as exciting as that was. We set out into the tall dewy grass (sometimes up to our armpits) and along trails made by animals. Before we left, the guide, in what I call “Zuleng” (a mixture of Zulu and English, but mostly Zulu, with lots of gestures) gave us the rules. “Rule no. 1: follow me closely in a straight line. Rule No 2 follow me in a straight line….” All the way to rule no. 5, which began to include animals. If a rhino charged we were to climb the nearest tree, which caused us all to keep an eye out for climbing trees on our walk. If an Elephant charged me were to run a zigzag line away (they don’t see well). If a sleeping lion was awakened, we were to bow in respect and slowly back away as though he/she were an oriental potentate. As we set out, trying to keep the rules straight in our head, I noticed for the first time that the guide’s rifle was a single shot bolt action, and wondered how long it took to reload. We didn’t need any of that, however. Still the walk was very exciting, as he had us walking slowly up to grazing Rhino, buffalo and a huge herd of wildebeest, while interpreting animal prints in the dirt and dung piles (the bush is full of so many animals the ground sometimes resembled a barn yard) along the way. He was an extremely knowledgeable bushman, often perfectly mimicking the sounds of various animals and birds. Once, before we could actually see them he interpreted the grunting sounds we heard as white rhino, huge beasts in mating season, and therefore somewhat edgy. In Zulu accompanied by colorful gestures he explained that the sound we heard was a male rhino with a female making another sound, which meant she was not cooperating, making the male a bit cranky. We should stay our distance so we watched them from behind a few large bushes.
The three hours of our hike in the bush flew by like minutes. Actually we didn’t get as close to the animals as in a car, they being more skittish of humans on foot, which was novel for them. Still, the nearly silent walk through this wild and beautiful bush land, over hills and into dry streambeds, expecting to see anything at any time, was totally absorbing. One of the so-called “big five” (rhino, buffalo, elephant, wildebeest and lion) we missed seeing was the lion, not because they aren’t numerous, but because they have such a wide range and are much more secretive than the others. But we did see a recent lion kill on our hike, a giraffe carcass, mostly bones picked clean by hyena and vultures, but still buzzing with flies.
The whole experience was nothing less than thrilling, and a memory we will carry with us for a lifetime. We’re headed back to Durban tomorrow to fly on our favorite cheap African airline, Kulula.com, to Port Elizabeth for a ride through the “garden route” along the southern cape to Capetown. Going south will mean it will be a bit colder so we’ll put all those lightweight cottons

Dispatch from Marianhill, Saturday, May 14

Yesterday morning we went to a nearby nature reserve for a three-hour hike. We hiked through and up the sides of a lovely gorge and over some dry hills with low trees—it looked so typical of pictures we’ve all seen of the African bush with the low flat-topped trees. We hoped to see some wildlife, like rhinos or zebra, but we did spot a heard of Impala at a range of about 50 yards, and some lovely birds. And hundreds of varied patterned and colored butterflies. Unfortunately, we discovered on our return home that our digital camera is not working properly, so we’re going to have to go out to the dreaded mall and find a new one.
We did another hike a few days ago about 75 miles south of Durban in the Oribi Gorge Nature preserve. It’s a magnificent gorge, carved out of limestone ages ago. We hiked about three hours through the gorge along a river. Unfortunately this is the end of the dry season, so the so-called “waterfalls’ were mere trickles. We didn’t see any animals on this hike either, though the brochure described all the species native to the park. We were rewarded as we drove out, however, when we rounded a bend in the road and a huge wart hog, a really ugly looking beast about the size of a small donkey but massive in girth, passed slowly off the road and down a ravine. We were glad we didn’t meet it on the trail, though I’m sure it would have run away in fright.
We are heading for the Umfolozi Nature Reserve up in northern Kwa Zulu Natal province on Sunday morning, ending our stay here. The word is that we’re sure to see lots of the “big five,” as they’re called.
Talking about wildlife, as I’m sitting on our balcony overlooking the beautifully landscaped gardens of Tre Fontaine, a whole herd (if that’s the word) of gray, very noisy monkeys passed through swinging from the trees and chasing each other. On the grounds here they’re as common the squirrels in our yard back home.
On returning from our hike we decided to take our first dip in the Tre Fontaine pool. Neither of us are big on pools, but the glittering blue water looked so inviting. It was surprising cold, and just what we needed. As we sat on the side in the sun with our legs dangling in the water Sister Margaret came charging (these German nuns only walk with speed and determination) into the pool area in her starched white habit, gleaming in the sun. She greeted us, gave Jeanne a birthday kiss, and went into the small stone changing room, emerging no less than a minute and a half later in her bathing suit. Now what with the reactions I have to endure to being discovered to be a Pastor sometimes, this shouldn’t happen, but I felt this mild shock at seeing her in a bathing suit jumping into the cold water. (What did I think—that she had a bathing habit?) After efficiently doing her self prescribed “five strokes,” she swam over and chatted with us for some time. She was very sympathetic and sensible about Jeanne’s parents, and we just had a warm and friendly chat. Earlier this week, I wrote that the community felt a bit more distant here, and that’s true, but we’ve come to love and enjoy the nuns who we see every day and gotten to know at the Guest House. These stout, hard-working, energetic women, who’ve lived and worked in Africa for so long, exude the fruit of the Spirit in their lives.
Last night, in honor of Jeanne’s birthday, we celebrated in grand style by going out to eat. This was a real gift for Jeanne since the food here at Tre Fontaine has a decidedly 1950’s quality—with lots of boiled potatoes, limp vegetables, and some kind of jello in the dessert—not her taste at all. The SA Rand is relatively weak against the dollar (about six rand to one dollar) and the restaurants tend to be quite reasonable anyway. That meant we were able to go to a really high-end restaurant at a posh hotel on the north coast of Durban.
After being seated in posh upholstered chairs like one might find in a fine living room, a duo of a piano and bass began to fill the room with very good jazz. We ordered an elegant and delicious four-course meal, placed before us with panache by a whole crew of waiters, and presented with artistry by the chef (we didn’t even have two serving dishes alike; they came in varied sizes and shapes, each fitting the course being presented). We brought our own bottle of fine Stellenbosch wine, which you can do at many restaurants for a corking fee, but we noted that the sommelier really studied the label to see if this is up to snuff (we don’t know his conclusion). It was a three-hour food extravaganza. What made it taste even better to this Dutchman was that all this cost 500 Rand, including the tip, which comes to about $83 (we’re finally getting pretty good at figuring the exchange rate), for a meal that would have been at least $250 in the States. And then there was the tip to the universal guard in the parking lot who directed my back up and sent us on our way with a smile.

Dispatch from Marianhill: Friday, May 13

After a few days of enjoying the ambiance and beauty of the Mariannhill and the area, we wanted to dig deeper into the real soil of South African reality. Our first excursion came at the invitation of Elizabeth, an elegant and energetic German woman of indeterminate age (but not far from mine). She’s been coming to Mariannhill for 35 years, and about 5 years ago became a permanent resident of the Tre Fontaine Guest House (there are about a dozen). Elizabeth more or less runs the St.Vincent’s Children’s Home, one of the many ministries on this compound, and invited us to come for a tour. It’s housed in a far corner of the compound, a series of low roof veranda style buildings, among the oldest at Mariannhill. (The children’s home was one of Pfanner’s first outreach ministries.) It’s not an orphanage (though there are some orphans there) but a home for children 1-18 years remanded by the child services branch of the government (which pays about 75% of the real cost, the rest has to be raised). The kids are assigned there for such things as abuse, neglect, alcoholism, and of course AIDS which prevents a parent or parents from properly caring for them.
When we came all but the pre-schoolers were away at school. The kids live in “cottage groups” of 12 to 15 of all ages, so there can be more of a family feeling. The kids were so beautiful and wonderful, one of them doing cartwheels for us as we visited her play group. But others stayed away, withdrawn, unsmiling, undoubtedly still dazed by the traumas that brought them there, or just shy.
It’s a good, clean, warm and caring environment. Still it’s almost heartbreaking to see those beds all lined up, well-made, with some kind of stuffed toy in each pillow. They do great work with the kids, but as Elizabeth said, with tears in her eyes, no matter how much better off the kids may be emotionally and materially, it’s not “home.” Most would prefer the dirt floor hut and meager food of a real family than the relative good fortune of St. Vincents, and who wouldn’t.
It’s also sobering to reflect on the likely future of most of these kids. Elizabeth was still shaken as she told the story of a former resident, a bright girl selected to attend the girls boarding school (another Mariannhill venture), and star pupil of her class, who was buried a few weeks ago in the Mariannhill cemetery, a victim of AIDS. Here too there was razor wire and two dogs to protect the children from intruders. It is still a belief among many men with AIDS, that sex with a virgin will cure their disease.
Yesterday was an experience of the kind of stark contrasts which characterize South Africa. We had heard that Sister Agnes, an Austrian nun who reminds me of the Mother Superior in “The Sound of Music,” though somewhat more ample and formidable (more of her later), organizes deliveries of food to some of the poorer (but not the poorest!) “townships” in the area. We asked if we could join her, and she gladly agreed. After breakfast we joined a small group led by Sister Agnes including Franz, a Presbyterian elder from a nearby church, and Rita, a Swiss woman who comes here twice a year (she lived in South Africa 25 years ago). We loaded up Franz’s pickup with plastic bags of food, and then Jeanne, Rita, and I bounced along in the back while Franz drove and Sister Agnes shouted directions. As we moved into the endless hills farther out from Durban, we entered areas where few whites go, the poorest townships where people live in tiny crumbling cement block shacks, or huts made of scrap tin or wood. Most of these people have moved to the city from rural areas in search of jobs, but with little or no education or usable skills, are unemployed. There are not enough jobs, even in SA’s booming economy, and even if there were, these folks lack the basic education and skills needed for a decent job, as well as transportation to work, which is expensive and time-consuming.
We pulled up to a “town hall,” a rudimentary cement block building that serves as a kind of community center. A large group of people, mostly women and children, surrounded our truck. The chief of the village took charge quickly (the traditional tribal customs remain as the people move from the rural areas into the cities.) He looked very sad, and told Sister Agnes that his nephew, 22 years old, had taken ill, died and the funeral was later that day. We assumed it was AIDS in the case of such a young man. We unloaded the pick up and piled the bags on a table in front of the community hall while all the people sat in wood benches or stood about. We (Jeanne, Rita, and I) were escorted to plastic chairs in front facing the group, and were introduced like guests of honor ( though we had just come along for the ride after all), which made us feel very uncomfortable, but the chief and Sister Agnes insisted. Everyone clapped and we clapped back.
After our introduction a wrinkled old woman got up and began to sing a slow song, sounding more lament than welcome, while all the people soon joined swaying to the rhythm. After the song, she launched into a passionate prayer, and people joined in with a growing chorus of prayer, each praying their own prayers, with the old woman’s voice rising like a descant over the top.
Then Sister Agnes, this stout German nun in her starched gray habit, launched into a passionate and entirely biblical and evangelical sermon (translated into Zulu) on the meaning of Pentecost (next Sunday). She did point out that “our Mother” was also present among the disciples as they waited and prayed for the Holy Spirit, which is perfectly true. She moved to a climax by telling the people that the same Holy Spirit who came so long ago, still comes into our hearts today, bringing hope and reconciliation, forgiveness and joy. Everyone listened intently. Then she led the group in a song (which flopped) and prayer for the Holy Spirit to fill the hearts of those gathered that day.
The little children captivated us. They had no inhibitions, of course, and were delighted by the visit of strangers and the attention we gave. They smiled freely at us, and some came to us to shake hands, and then they would just stand there staring at us with a big smile on their faces. One little girl sat on my lap, another sidled up to Jeanne who scratched his back. When she moved, he moved with her, and just poked her leg for more back scratching. Some of the women wore designs of clay on their faces, sometimes in some sort of design. I don’t think it was a beauty cream, but must have some sort of tribal traditional meaning.
The food that was left in the truck, was not stolen or touched by anyone.
We ran out of food at that stop and had to return to Mariannhill to refill the pick up. Sister Agnes invited us to her office in the basement for tea and the obligatory bun with cold cuts, which is their morning snack. This wonderful woman of about 70 or 75 (though she jumped off the truck with the agility of a 40 year old), does this as a sideline. She explained that her main work is pastoral, some among the German community in Durban, and also ecumenically. She has training in psychology, and describes her work as listening. She rode with us in the back of the truck on our return, and as she talked we learned of her deep commitment to God, to the poor, to the unity of all Christians, and to her beloved South Africa.
Then it was back in the truck and off to another, even poorer township farther away. This place was even sadder, somehow, the look of despair or defeat clouding so many faces. A couple of drunk men hung around the edges of the crowd that gathered around the truck in the hot sun shouting words I couldn’t understand. The “chief” here was a formidable older woman, like the grandmother of the town. She read from a list of names, and no one was going to get a food package whose name was not on that list.
Rita, a hospice worker in Switzerland who comes here at least twice a year, was very knowledgeable about the economic and social problems of the people. On her visits she spends at least one week volunteering in a hospice for AIDS patients. She complained how the Government and especially the Minister of Health doesn’t really support the anti-retroviral drug program, but urges homegrown remedies from garlic to beetroot. Part of this is the residue of the twin calamities of colonial and apartheid, resulting in a distrust of anything the Europeans say is best. “Our own ways are better,” is the response. Rita also insisted that the rates of HIV infection are much higher than the government figures, up to 30% of the population, a truly frightening number that portends huge problems to this recovering nation and economy. And the biggest growth is among women and their babies (the government has done little to utilize the cheap and simple drug that prevents the spread of HIV to 80% of newborns). Also, rape is all too commonplace in this society, and women have little voice (the idea that sex with a virgin will cure AIDS still persists among some of the uneducated men).
Yet people are making it too. Just up the hill from this very poor town, we saw neat houses with cars in front, belonging to blacks who evidently had decent jobs and were climbing the social and economic ladder.
At the end of the morning we stopped briefly at a hospice run by the Sisters of Charity (the order founded by Mother Teresa) with their characteristic homespun blue-fringed habits. We dropped off some food but couldn’t take up the time of the one sister there caring for 50 or so dying people (the two other sisters were out in the towns that day). These sisters only take in people who have no one else to care for them, which means their families are either far away, or all dead. I was secretly thankful we didn’t go inside—I’m not sure I could take any more that morning.
The jarring contrast of the day came when we had to return to the huge, glitzy Pavilion Mall about 7 miles from here to do our blogging and emailing (it’s the closest place that will accept my USB memory stick), and for me to get a haircut (yes, I’m keeping the buzz). It was a shock to walk among the fountains and waterfalls, and see all the material stuff when we had just witnessed such poverty and despair. This massive demarcation of rich and poor, with a growing but struggling middle class, is the story here and all over Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where the same issues of colonial fallout, inept and corrupt government, AIDS, and lack of education create such inequities.
What we did yesterday seems like a drop in the ocean—a few bags of food in a vast township of destitution and need.
I continue to study Eugene Petersen’s enormously rich spiritual theology “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.” A couple of quotes come to mind as I reflect on these experiences.
History is lubricated with tears. Prayer, maybe most prayers (two thirds of the Psalms are laments), is accompanied by tears. All these tears are gathered up and absorbed in the tears of Jesus. (P. 138)
Then, reflecting on salvation in the context of Exodus, he describes how it comes at Israel’s darkest moment, as they faced slavery and genocide at the hands of the Pharaoh.
This is a significant discernment. It means that our classic story of salvation does not build on anything that we have done or can do either as individuals or societies. It is initiated in conditions of human impossibility, all odds stacked against it. We are blocked from going into a huddle and calculating our chances. At that historical dead end, our imaginations, unencumbered with social, political, and therapeutic strategies, are free to pay attention to God. (P. 149)

View from our balcony to SE

SA MHill porch view to dining low,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

View to NE from our balcony

SA MHill porch, pool low,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Dispatch from Mariannhill, Wednesday, May 11

Always in search of a new experience, we made a visit yesterday to a South African police station. Actually I was required to report there. The story begins with my car rental. It’s a smallish Nissan with a standard transmission. Now,, I’ve driven a standard transmission off and on for years, but my car at home is an automatic, and so was our last rental in NZ. The first morning here, all packed up for a jaunt into the countryside, I stuck in the key, started the car, which, to my utter surprise and dismay, lurched ahead into the stone wall in front of me in the parking lot. I had forgotten all about the standard transmission and didn’t engage the clutch.
Many of you know that feeling of creeping embarrassment and stupidity as you sit there dumfounded before going out to assess the damage. It wasn’t much, a few scratches and dents in the "rubber" bumper, but not so little as to escape notice when I return the car. It’s one of those little dents that will probably end up costing a couple of thousand dollars.
The next day I called the rental company to ask what to do. Their first question was, do you have a police accident report? But, I protested, this was just a minor fender-bender on private property, and no other vehicle was involved. No difference, we have to have a police incident number, and you have to report it to the local police.
So that’s what brought us to the station in charge of our jurisdiction, a series of squat temporary buildings in a field at the end of a potholed drive. We got out of the car, not knowing where to go among the scattered "portables." I spotted a white officer, the only one, wearing a flack jacket and sweating in the sun, and asked him for directions. He pointed us to one of the buildings and told us to contact the captain, "the Indian guy with the big captain’s insignia on his uniform." Entering the hot, crowded "building," we were immediately the object of intense interest--these white folks with strange accents among a varied group of blacks, including a couple of lawyers. They must have wondered what we were doing here, a place where I suspect few whites are seen.
The captain emerged after a few minutes. After telling him of our story he set about finding the right forms, all the while apologizing for the condition of the police station. With that resigned shrug characteristic of all low and mid level government officials, he grumbled that they had been promised a new station for 12 years. He kindly took down our information in an old gray record book. All this business was conducted in front of the dozen or so people seated in the office, though I don’t know if they grasped our American English. When he was finished, and without ever looking at the car, he wrote down the name of the record book, the number of the entry, and the phone number of the station house and gave it to us
We always said we wanted to experience as many aspects of life as possible in the countries we visited, and we’re doing just that in South Africa. Jeanne thought it would be interesting to get a picture of me being "booked" in order to send to the Banner -- CRC minister has police record in South Africa.

Dispatch from Mariannhill, Tuesday, May 10

Durban is a fascinating African crossroads city with a huge port (the sixth largest in the world) where all sorts of people and cultures meet. We experienced various sides of the city the past couple of days. Sunday we went out in search of an Internet cafÈ that could handle my "memory stick" (not all do since they’re afraid of viruses). We landed in one of Durban’s two huge glitzy Malls, the Pavilion. It can be seen from miles around, a huge complex set on one of Durban’s many hills. Unlike American malls, which tend to more businesslike, this Mall was obviously planned as an escape. You enter from the parking lot patrolled by armed guards, through an entrance of waterfalls and a fake tropical forest. Once inside we faced a dizzying array of stores, restaurants, bowling alleys, miniature golf courses, a Cineplex (with a mixture of Hollywood and Bollywood), and who knows what else (the other big Mall has a huge pool with a wave maker producing waves big enough to learn to surfboard. Our guidebook quite accurately describes these Malls as places "where the wealthy minority hides from the poor majority, in a glitzy local version of the American Dream." Except it was bigger and glitzier and with more activities that I’ve seen in any American Mall, granted, however, that we are not Mall people.
The next day we made an excursion into "downtown" Durban for a completely different experience. It’s a typical big-city downtown with lots of high-rise buildings, some rather new, but on the street, we hardly every saw a white person. The streets are lined with shops—not the big name ones you see in Chicago or London, but mostly smaller shops filled with clothes, cheap electronic stuff, ethnic goods. The sidewalks were jammed with people, and for blocks and blocks the street side was lined with street merchants, selling everything from fruits and vegetables to phone calls (about 25 cents) and various kinds of clothes and luggage and just about everything else. We encountered no beggars; everyone was selling something. And the mixture of people was amazing, from Zulus, to other Africans, to many Indians (a large group that has been here since the late 19th century) to Arabs. But there were very few whites, making us, me especially, an object of intense sales pressure. We had lunch in a lovely, well-kept tropical park across from the city hall. There was a menu from which we chose a traditional Zulu dish (phuphu, I think), and a bottle of local beer, but we couldn’t help but notice that we were the only ones eating at the traditional lunch hour. All the other patrons, mostly young people, were drinking from huge liter bottles of Amstel lager, many of the tables with several empties lined up like trophies.
We made our way down to the Victoria Street Market, a huge warren of little shops that winds through buildings, alleys, and out into the surrounding streets. It’s one of the markets Jeanne loves, but I’m always trying to keep track of some daylight so I know where to escape. What a contrast to the pristine Malls, here were stalls with exotic spices, piled high with pots and pans, and booths piled high with African souveniers (carved ebony, baskets, bead work, etc.)
I spotted a young Arab store-keeper wearing a long white "dishsasha" (he called it something else). I told him I’ve always admired these long cotton robes and like to wear them at night in the summer at home. (I used to have one but it was too small and shrunk further in the wash, and now Jeanne wears it.) We were immediately led through a series of nearby shops catering to Arabs, till we found one with bigger sizes. A young man with shaky English tried to help me, and then out of the back room there silently emerged a woman, completely covered in a "chador"(if that’s the spelling) from head to toe, to the black cotton gloves on her hands, sparking dark eyes and a little bit of black skin around them visible from the little opening. She spoke to the Muslim men and to Jeanne, but never directly to me, and seemed to have some authority in the shop. One of the men asked me, "Are you a Muslim?" I said no, but I just liked to wear these clothes. He couldn’t help smiling the whole time, as did the woman only whose laughing eyes could be seen. I must have been the talk of the dinner table that night. In the end I didn’t find one I liked (most were polyester and not what I wanted to wear on a warm summer night).
The trouble is that in this great market there were no tourists in sight, except us. "Pay no attention to prices marked, we make good deal," was the mantra of the shopkeepers. Tragically, this vibrant inner city becomes ghost town at night, because of rampant crime. The wealthy (black and whites) flee to the suburbs for restaurants and entertainment.
For all the persistent problems, from AIDS to racism to crime, I still get the feeling that SA is a country on the rise. There’s a feeling of energy here. Despite it all, there seems to be a determination to work out a messy democracy in a land filled with immense resources of people and raw materials. More and more the divide isn’t between black, colored, and white, but between the rich and the poor. In Durban you’re just as likely to see a black as a white driving a huge BMW (its biggest market in the world) or Mercedes. But you don’t see any white setting up stalls on the sidewalks of the city center.
Christianity has a big presence here too. As we drove around the city we saw several huge mega-church buildings, like "The Church of all Nations" advertised as the place where miracles happen. Watching TV, there are lots of religious programs, most slanted toward the "God can do a miracle for you today" variety, with pictures of people falling into frenzied trances after being touched by the evangelist/pastor. Remember too that it was the church, especially people like Desmond Tutu, that led the country through the post apartheid period with its amazing demonstration of Christian ethics in the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission." It may well be that Christianity saved the nation from a bloodbath of recrimination and revenge.

Dispatch From Mariannhill, Monday, May 10

We find that each community that we visit deals with us in somewhat different way as guests. Often this is a question of how close we are physically to the community. Southern Star in New Zealand was a very small community, and the guests stayed in very close proximity to the monks, bringing not only more contact, but also a greater sense of participation in the community’s life. In the Philippines the guesthouse was situated further from the actual monastery, but we had lots of contact through the Guest Master who practically lived at the guesthouse. Here at Marianhill we are living not so much at a monastic guesthouse but a retreat house run by the Sisters of the Precious Blood. Tre Fontaine caters to retreat groups from parishes and other visitors who come through, especially Germans and Austrians, harking back to the Austrian, German-speaking founder, Franz Pfanner. So, while we interact regularly with the sisters, it’s more as guests in a hotel rather than as guests of a community.
I don’t mean to make it sound as though it’s less than friendly and inviting. We are invited to join in their morning and evening prayers, which we do. The prayers, strangely, are in English (that’s also true of the their monastic brothers at the other end of the complex) even though the majority of the community is black African, and the minority is German-speaking. It was surprising this morning to find ourselves in the convent chapel in South Africa singing "Take My Life and Let it Be," and "O Jesus I Have Promised To Serve Thee to the End," one at least to the tune we use in the Psalter Hymnal. Don’t worry; I didn’t bellow it out over all the female voices.
Sunday we went to the Mass at the Cathedral which is part of the large complex, about a two-block walk from Tre Fontaine. The large red brick church was probably built in the late 19th century in the typical cruciform structure. The inside is rather elaborately decorated with paintings on the walls of various scenes in the life of Jesus, stained glass windows, and Latin inscriptions. Pfanner might have had a vision of an indigenous church, but he couldn’t imagine a church looking other than traditionally western. What a contrast then, to find ourselves the only white people at a Zulu language Mass in this ornate cathedral.
The whole liturgy was fascinating. When we came in the church was about half full, and all the people were standing, being led in prayer by an older man in a suit at the pulpit. I assumed from then repetitive nature of the prayer that it was the ‘Hail Mary" though there were no rosaries in sight. After a while the man led in a couple of songs. All the singing for the whole service was seemingly spontaneous. The leader of the priest would start a song and the congregation would immediately join in, with the rich harmony and insistent rhythm so characteristic of Zulu music. The congregation was standing during this whole time, and we were sitting about half way from then front. At the end of this preparatory time for worship, this elderly gentleman, obviously the lay leader of the parish, started from the front and began to move everyone forward to fill in all the seats. (This is what we need on Sunday mornings.) By the time he was finished, the place was packed with people. I had noticed that there were few men around me, but when I looked back after the great migration, I saw that those seated at the back of the church were mostly men—some cultural thing I suppose.
The priest came in unobtrusively, following the acolytes, all teenage boys, and the singing began, and there was lots of it, all from the store of songs in the people’s hearts in wonderful harmony. The songs now started from up in the balcony behind us, where the choir sat, in the familiar call and response style. Often a single voice began a song, and after a few words the whole congregation joined in. Sometimes there was rhythmic clapping, and some bodily movement. For one song, a number of the older women (there were groups of them wearing similar color clothes or ribbons very much like the "sisterhoods" typical African-American church) did a kind of dance in the center aisle. All of this took place in the context of the liturgy of the Mass that was clearly followed; it did not have the freewheeling spontaneity of a Pentecostal service.
After the gospel reading the young black priest seemed ready to begin the homily but instead he started singing, and all the people quickly joined in. After that he seemed to be ready to preach, but looked up and began another song, this one very lively. Soon he was out in front of the altar, leading the congregational singing with swaying and clapping. Now we were ready for the homily. Again, I was struck by the similarity of his style to that of typical African-American preachers. He began in a rather low-key manner, reading his text and only occasionally looking up. Gradually the pace and volume increased, the gestures became more dramatic, and he began to move away from the pulpit. Low murmurs of response echoed from the audience, sometimes laughter, as he worked steadily up to the climax. We didn’t understand a word, of course, and hadn’t looked up the gospel text for the day beforehand so we had no idea what he was talking about. But I agreed with every word, Amen!
There was a candle on each side of the pulpit. One was the traditional Paschal candle, the other, slightly smaller, was decorated with a large red ribbon, like the yellow, pink and other color ribbons people wear for various causes; this one for victims of AIDS. South Africa has one of the highest percentages of people with HIV/AIDS in the world-- about ten percent of the population is infected. This may also explain the sense we had of a tone of somberness, even heaviness in the Mass, despite the lively singing, and the fact that I saw a number of people quietly weeping during the service. No doubt many of the people there were either infected or were close to people who were or remembered family members who had died.
After the homily came the offering, and we all went to the front where two boys stood with large wooden boxes with slots on the top to deposit your offering. That movement made the offering feel much more like an act of dedication than our typical practice of dropping the offering in a basket as it gets passed around. We also noticed that there were few children in attendance. But that changed right after the homily. Evidently they were in some kind of "children’s worship" or Christian education class, but just before the Eucharist, they came into the church and filled in the space all around the altar. So when the communion liturgy began, there was a sea of children’s faces around the altar. It was delightful. And they were the first to receive the communion too. "Let the children come to me…for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven." Soon the whole congregation came forward singing and swaying down the aisle.
After the Eucharist, but before the service ended, a woman got up to speak. Again we didn’t understand what was going on, but after the Mass we asked someone who explained that this woman was the head of the local Catholic school whose children needed help to participate a traditional Zulu dance competition among the schools. Again the people went to the front with their offerings, this time not all at once, but here and there someone went forward, and then more and more joined in, as though the momentum was building for what was to be a really sacrificial gift. When everyone was back in their places, the sounds of a whistle and drums came from the back and about two dozen kids about 10 to 13 started from the back and came dancing down the aisle in what must have been a traditional Zulu dance in traditional dress (not very much of it either). I wish I could have taken a picture. The mass is nearly over, the priest is sitting in front of the altar surrounded by the children, while the dancers ducked and swayed and kicked their legs high to the whistle and drums. The whole congregation clapped along, people craning their necks and standing in the aisle to see. They were Roman Catholics, but the school was also going to teach them to be Zulu Catholics. We learned later that all the schools, even private or church run schools, are now under government supervision, and the government can dictate the curriculum.
Soon the Mass was over. As we walked out, no on talked to us, the proverbial elephants in the room. Sometimes there is a smiling welcome, and sometimes there is a kind of cautious reserve toward whites here. I’m sure it has something to do with the years of oppression. They are the majority, and have positions of power, but the real power, the power of money, is still largely in white hands. More on that later. This is getting too long already.

Dispatch From Mariannhill, Saturday, April 7

I’m sitting in the late afternoon on our balcony of the Tre Fontaine Guest House right next to the Convent of the Sisters of the Precious Blood just west of Durban along the eastern coast of South Africa. The balcony overlooks a typical garden-like African landscape with palms, hibiscus, and other exotic trees and plants located in a section called the Thousand Hills, which pretty well describes the contour of the land. The grounds are neatly groomed and immaculate, and I can just see a corner of the pool below the guesthouse. (Look on the Mariannhill link in the links section of the website)
Durban is the heart and capital of what is now the state of Kwa Zulu Natal, formerly Natal Province by the Afrikaners before the end of apartheid. It was the scene of the Boer War of the early 20th century, and center of resistance to apartheid. Ghandi landed in Durban in 1893 as a young Indian lawyer, and was thrown off a train and arrested in nearby Pietermartizberg, leading to his political and moral galvanizing of the considerable Indian population in the area. Nelson Mandela also comes from this area, part of which, Transkei, was one of the notorious "homelands’ set up by the White government to give the appearance of self-rule for Blacks. They only caused blacks to immigrate to the cities since the homelands had no industry or infrastructure. The Transkei It became one of the centers of resistance to apartheid.
We couldn’t believe what we saw as we drove up from Durban this morning. The whole Marriannhill complex contains a monastery, a convent, a huge cathedral (it’s the center of a Roman Catholic diocese, with a high respected Zulu bishop), St. Francis College (where generations of black students including anti-apartheid leader Steve Biko were educated), a vocational school, a liturgical arts workshop, an orphanage, an AIDS Hospital with 300 beds, and a number of small business enterprises to help local people generate work and income. It’s a huge mission complex, most of it built in the early 20th century, and all of the buildings and grounds are clean and manicured, making it look almost like an African resort.
Marriannhill was established in through the vision and untiring efforts of Franz Pfanner, its founder. He was an Austrian Trappist who came her in 1879. From the beginning he was committed to indigenous monks and training indigenous clergy. Mission work, both evangelization and the holistic improvement of the lives of the people surrounding the monastery, quickly became the core of the community’s work. The monastery thrived, at one point becoming the largest in the world with 285 monks. A problem arose when the wider Trappist order felt that Mariannhill was straying from the original Trappist commitment of solitude and prayer by engaging in too much mission work. Eventually this led to a meeting in Rome in the early 20th century at which the Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries and its sister community, the Sisters of the Precious Blood, became a separate order, dedicated to missions among the poor, and eventually growing into a worldwide order. Now, fitting Pfanner’s vision, the community is largely indigenous, and obviously devoted to its mission to the Zulu people of the area. Its mission is "better fields, better homes, better hearts."
We arrived just in time for lunch, met a few people (including a number of North American and European young people spending anywhere from a few months to a year volunteering at the hospital, orphanage, and college), and then took a walk around the complex. After all our travels we’re looking forward to settling in for a week or so, and certainly plan on an early bedtime.
Sadly, like Johannesburg, the concern for security is all too evident here too. Electrically controlled iron gates open as you drive into the Tre Fontaine guesthouse, guards patrol a pole-gate at the convent, and barbed wire is wound around the bottom parts of the rain gutter drainpipes. There’s not only a front door, but also a high iron gate with an extra key to enter the building. We asked about taking walks to the various settlements in the vicinity of the complex, and were advised that it might not be safe for white foreigners. Our understanding is that much of violence comes from youths high on a cheap drug widely available here. I also wonder whether the sheer hopelessness that descends when so many are dying of AIDS doesn’t contribute to an attitude of anarchy. It’s no excuse, but living by the rules in a society must require some hope for the future, some sense that there is a future to live and work for.
Still, the Zulu people we’ve met here, which includes probably three quarters of the convent community, are extraordinarily friendly, open-hearted, and committed. We hope to meet some Zulu people through the community here and visit their homes and towns, so we can get a true sense of their community and living situation.

Dispatch from Johannesburg, Saturday May 7

As always it’s a quite disorientating to arrive in another country, another culture, another large city. Everything is strange and new-- the airport , the money, the language, how to get from here to there, and most of all the largely hidden, but novel customs and habits of the local people. The saving feature is that airports and then people who service them are built around moving travelers from one place to another, or getting them to their destination in the city. Still, learning the exchange rate to get an idea of how far your money goes with our limited math (less and less these days with the American dollar), and finding a place to stay amid the shouts of touts wanting you to go to their places from which they get a cut. It didn’t help that I left my new 50 Rand phone card in the telephone (in my defense we were used to the kind that you punch in numbers rather than insert in the phone).
What makes this all harder is that this sudden burst of mental energy comes at the end of a long, long flight (26 hours from leaving our hotel in Christchurch NZ to arriving in Johannesburg with a layover in Sydney). Look on your map, and you will get an idea of the huge distance from New Zealand to South Africa. We also didn’t want to sleep very much on the flight, which is the best escape from the boredom of being cooped up for so long in a crowded metal tube, since we’d be landing at 4 in the afternoon and would like to adjust quickly to local time. I don’t know how flight crews do it—keeping 400 or so passengers from going stir crazy for 19 hours, cleaning bathrooms, and tending to mothers with crying babies and cranky passengers. (There was one good movie on the flight, "Ray," which neither of us had seen before.) It all brings to mind the prayer from our last dispatch: "we pray, with your wisdom all who are striving to protect travelers from injury and harm." We are always amazed at the number of really old people (older even than me), who put their sometimes frail bodies through this grueling marathon of travel.
We finally landed Africa, the mysterious continent, the place of our dreams, but we we’re too anxious and travel weary to really savor the moment. After making our way through the familiar routine of customs we emerged into the big, noisy, international arrivals hall. Fortunately we already had in mind a place to stay near the airport (a backpackers type of accommodation, a type of place with which you’re now familiar) so we could grab an early morning flight to Durban, and the Marriannhill monastery, our first destination in SA. Unfortunately, the place turned out to be a bit on the seedy side, and on our short ride there got acquainted with the less desirable sides of life these days in Johannesburg. Judging, perhaps unfairly, from the part we saw in the fading light of dusk near the airport, it’s huge, thoroughly modern, but also somewhat ragged and dingy-- quite a change from prim and proper New Zealand.
The most striking and ominous visual feature is that every house has eight to ten foot brick or iron fences, often with dogs patrolling the perimeter, and iron bars on all the windows. Arriving at our "backpackers" place, the driver electronically opened a sliding iron gate and we slipped inside what amounted to a security compound complete with razor wire spiraled along the tops of the brick walls. In one way this instills confidence, in another, it arouses fears—and sadness. What kind of society makes all this necessary, especially when you’re used to the "security" of a lock on the front door back home?
We arrived hungry (even after three airplane meals compliments of Quantas) and we were searching for a place to eat, since we didn’t bring any food to cook for ourselves in the kitchen. The proprietor informed us that walking to the nearest restaurant after dark was out of the question, but fortunately a Danish couple who arrived at about the same time, and had been here before, had booked dinner at a local hot spot called JosÈ’s. This was, somewhat incongruously, an old fashioned Greek restaurant, carefully presided over with genial pats on the back and hearty laughter by JosÈ himself. The dinner was grand, with huge servings of lamb, calamari and vegetables, and the service by young black men was attentive, friendly, and often even joyous.
At around 8 the bistro revved up with excitement as a couple of Greek dancers arrived and "Zorba the Greek" music blared from the speakers placed around the room. I couldn’t figure out what was happening as I saw JosÈ pass around what looked like cheap plates to the waiting crew, and to every table. Then the dancing began, with the girls, later hand-in-hand with the black waiters, weaved their way among the tables with rhythmic clapping. Then at JosÈ’s signal, everyone crashed their plates on the ground and shouted "OpÈ", which from then on was littered with chards crunching underfoot. Everyone loved it, especially the largely Africaner patrons.
Well, I’m up early again (5 am), my inner clock paying no heed to local time, but I love sitting down in the quiet of the morning to reflect a bit on our experiences. We’ll be leaving this morning for a 10 am flight to Durban, and a drive to our monastery. We’ve booked a flight on one of those cheap upstart airlines sprouting up all over the world— Kulula.com, sporting the most whimsical web sight I’ve ever seen for a business. Some of you may have flown with Southwest Airlines, famous for the "unprofessional" and refreshing quality of their flight attendant’s orientation banter. Well, Kulula tops them all. The chief flight attendant announced that, for example, anyone caught smoking would be expelled from the plane but allowed to ride the wing to the destination. In event of emergency, we were told to bend our heads forward between our knees and "kiss your ass goodbye." At the end of the flight they
announced that the attendants would be going through cabin picking up trash, but, if anything was left, could it please be something the attendants would enjoy eating, or, well--money. It’s refreshing to chuckle through the obligatory announcements, and this crew were comedic pros as well as fine flight attendants. I trust the airline was a little less whimsical about airplane maintenance and pilot training. The flight was only around $50 US per person, not much more costly than the big intercity busses, and lot faster.

Mt Cook

NZ Mt Cook low,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Janne and Len on a Hike on mount Cook

Mt Cook

NZ Mt Cook low,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

A view approaching mt.Cook from the highway.

Dispatch from Lake Tekapo, May 4, 2005

As we come to the end of the New Zealand portion of our journey, we’ve noticed the travel fatigue that comes from spending every night in a different place, no matter how beautiful. So we decided to settle for a couple of nights in Lake Tekapo, in the high central plains surrounded by snow-capped peaks, but within three hours of Christchurch from where we fly out on May 6. Today was a day to catch up on laundry, do some flight and hotel arrangements, and catch up on our emailing—oh, and spend some time in the sun drinking tea.
After a few days of cooking our own stuff at backpackers kitchens, we found a pizza take-out here and ordered one to bring back to the envy of all out young fellow guests. A word about pizza here. Far- away New Zealand has, by far, the best and most imaginative pizzas we’ve ever encountered. It’s hard to find what in the US we call a typical pizza (pepperoni or sausage with lots of tomato sauce and cheese). Last night, for example, we ordered a large pizza, half with sweet potato and some other sauce, marinated venison, with plum sauce drizzled on top. The other half was a vegetarian delight with tiny tomato slices, basil, blue cheese, and lots of other subtly hidden tastes. And this is in the little town of Lake Tekapo (pop. 325). At another place we had a pizza topped with salmon and a delicate creamy cheese sauce. Unfortunately we took a few left over slices back to the hostel foir lunch the next day, labeled it properly, and someone stole it from our place in the refrigerator (the only such nefarious act we’ve run into in our experience here. Jeanne never quite got over it, and every day I hear about that so and so who stole our pizza. I think it was a case of the "rich American" syndrome, in which people think that being an American you’re so necessarily so rich you owe them something. The fact is the George Bush needs to prop up the dollar here—it’s not going as far as it was supposed to.
We’ve really become "backpacker" connoisseurs, which involves being able to decipher the descriptions in the guidebooks (watch out for "adequate," or "basic"), asking the right questions on the phone (heat in the rooms –yes we’ve done without when it was below freezing!), and just having that gut feeling. The place we’re staying last night and tonight is run by a Dutch couple who’ve been in NZ for 13 years. I may be a little prejudiced, but when I hear the backpacker’s is run by the van den Boch’s, I envision a tidy, well-run facility, which is exactly what it is. Mike, an avid gardener, has landscaped the yard with all kinds of plants and flowers, keeps a great kitchen, and supplies towels at no extra cost, which is a real rarity.
Now there’s a story. Have you noticed how couples can have very different ideas about how to spend their money. When you travel, this difference tends to come up quite regularly. For example, most backpackers don’t include towels and charge 2 bucks NZ for the service-- about $1.50 US. I’m ready to pull out my wallet, but Jeanne thinks this is an outrageous amount to pay when we have our own towels already, towels which she took along over my firm objections. Now, the towels of which I speak are "camp towels," the kind you order from the camping catalogues that make their way to our mailbox every other day. These are not "real" towels, but polyester fake chamois cloths, which, after you use them do little more than aid in air drying afterward. The other day, when I forgot mine in the shower, I asked Jeanne to please bring me "the thing you call a towel," which just seems to confirm her decision to take them. Two bucks for a real towel every night, that’s all I ask. Jeanne says they hold 20 times their weight in water – and if you add up 2.00 a night times 12 nights that’s 24.00 – enough for 3 desserts.
To be fair, there are also things for which I can’t stand to part with a couple of bucks, like a $5 pot of tea when we can make it ourselves as soon as we get to the backpacker in a few hours, or the dessert WHICH WE DO NOT NEED, at a restaurant. Traveling as a couple is in many ways an exercise in financial and emotional toleration. I’m glad to report that ours has grown wonderfully as the weeks go by. So I continue to use the towels (until they are somehow lost along the way) and I smile blandly when the bill comes for the overpriced cup of tea.
Of course, driving through some of the most stunning scenery in the world helps. It’s hard to be intolerant or short with each other when every turn in the road brings another postcard sight. We left Haast on the west coast on Monday in the rain, and it rained most of the time the whole day. In most cases that would quash the beauty of driving through a mountainous terrain, but a rainy day has its own beauty in the mountains here. Leaving Haast we drove up to a pass along a serpentine roadway lined with lush trees and ferns interspersed with dashing waterfalls. Coming over the pass, the landscape began to change from the lush rainforests of the coast to the more arid, mostly treeless brown hills of the central plateau. Even though it was often raining, the vista was so broad that you could always see areas where the light broke through and the clouds parted to reveal a white-capped mountain range. This play of clouds and mountains offered constant fascination, and the road wound around the lakes and mountains so constantly, that we began to hold our breath in anticipation of the next scene. We also pulled over often to jump out of the car to take it all in like a breath of visual air—and take some pictures.
That day we decided to stay on the road a bit longer than usual since hiking in the rain wasn’t all that inviting. We ended up in a tiny town called Omarama, where we had our most unusual backpacker experience. We saw a sign for a backpacker facility on a sheep farm, so we turned off the highway on to a country road for a few kilometers, pulling into a sort of farmyard, or as their called here, a station. The woman who ran the place owned the station along with her husband, some 30,000 acres of grass hills and valleys for grazing sheep and beef cattle. I couldn’t even imagine 29,000 acres, So I calculated that the church lot is about 6 acres, so it would be 5,000 of them—a good chunk of South Bend.
The actual hostel was a refurbished out-building that was, and is used for the crews that come to shear the sheep twice a year. It reminded me of the old western movie "bunkhouse" where the real cowboys who herded cattle lived when not out on the range. The couple figured that they might as well use the place the rest of the 50 weeks, so they fixed it up quite nicely, and put it on the backpacker circuit.
We arrived at dusk in a driving rain (a rarity in those arid parts), and rang the buzzer for the proprietor. There being no other car or person in sight, I thought I’d check things out a bit before the proprietor came. I looked in a sleeping room--OK, then opened the door to what appeared to be the kitchen and dining room. There sat a lovely, and surprised, young woman, who, we later learned was a student from Switzerland. That’s the backpackers life in a nutshell, meeting a sophisticated French-speaking young woman from Switzerland on a remote sheep station in the new Zealand outback. It turned out this student liked to travel alone, had been dropped off by a bus at the junction and stayed there because she wanted the experience and loved the solitude.
There were a couple of down sides to this place, remote and mysterious as it was. The room was heated, but the electric radiant heater never quite won the battle with the damp cold of that frosty night, and the old sheep-shearer’s bed had a definite "trough" down the center. Still, it was fascinating to wake up to the moaning of the cattle outside our window, and watch the clouds give way to sunshine on what turned out to be a glorious day while we "cheated" in the kitchen by turning on the oven full blast a half hour before we went in to make some breakfast.
This is getting too long, and I’ve been avoiding the best part, afraid it will turn into a travel brochure or a travelogue minus the pictures. After leaving the sheep station we traveled along the straightest roads yet in this high country. The clouds first hung low over the hills, but the sun gradually burned them away, revealing the breathtaking vista of New Zealand’s central highlands—McKenzie country. We drove along looking on a panorama of more than 180 degrees of an unobstructed view of one freshly snow-capped range after another. After a few miles the mighty Mt Cook/Mt, Aoriki began to dominate the horizon. The Maori name, Aoriki means "cloud-piercer," and that’s what we saw as we approached in the mid morning. This peak, drawing a mantle of clouds around its shoulder, and bathed in brilliant sunshine, pierced above the rest of the surrounding range. It’s the tallest mountain in all of Australia/Asia. We hiked to its foot that day, and as we neared this grand mountain through a deep valley, we reached for words, but ended up with the overused awesome—one of the few sights and experiences that deserve the word. It’s understandable that the Psalms so often speak of God in terms of the majesty, grandeur and immovability of a mountain.
Leaving Mt Cook and driving to Lake Tekapo, range after range of white mountains spread across the horizon as far as you could see. As we come to the end of the New Zealand section of our journey, it seems as though, without planning it that way, we had saved the best till last.
Often in the morning, especially when we’re on the road, we like the prayer for the ways in which takes us beyond the usual ‘traveling mercies," to the consideration of the many people we meet along the way.
Merciful God, giver of life and health, guide, we pray, with your wisdom all who are striving to protect travelers from injury and harm. Grant to those who travel consideration for others, and to those who walk and play a thoughtful caution and care; so that without fear or misfortune we may all come safely to our journey’s end, by your mercy, who cares for each one of us; through Jesus Christ our Savior

A minor traffic jam along highway 6.

NZ SH6 traffic,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Jeanne and Len at the top of the glacier face.

NZ Franz glacier us 2low,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

A view of the Franz Josef glacier from a lake a few miles away.

NZ Franz glacier lake view low,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Dispatch from Haast: Sunday May 1

Haast is a little town of 262 souls according to our guidebook, but, like every little crossroads in this country, we found a great little “backpackers” hostel again. Plus it’s the only town for the next 150 kilometers in this rugged and lonely part of New Zealand. We’ve learned to check backpackers by their kitchens and bathrooms, not to mention the thickness of the toilet paper and the level of heat in the rooms, but you can’t have everything. We’ve grown tired of restaurant food, especially in little towns, and like to cook on our own, a familiar little bit of home. Many of the backpackers have surprisingly well-equipped kitchens, and it’s a good way to meet people as you negotiate over the pots and pans. Last night, laboring over chili, we got to know a young American student studying music at a university here for his “semester abroad”.
We spent the last couple of days traveling down the west coast of the south island. The coast road (highway 6) is a little like US 1 along the central California coast, except that the road hugs the coast almost all the way, twisting among rocky inlets and high on cliffs while the snow capped “southern Alps” loom in the east. Another big difference is that the road is always two lanes, and a lot narrower than most US roads, often literally cut out of the rain forest. The road never stretches more than a kilometer or two on the straight and level, and often there are long sections of twisting and turning road that remind us of a rollercoaster ride.
Along the way the road crosses innumerable rivers and steams that run from the mountains to the sea. We’ve discovered that the New Zealanders have a need to name everything—every bridge and trickle of a stream, even culverts, and about 90% of the bridges are one lane. At the beginning of the bridge there’s a sign that tells you whether you have the right of way or the car coming from the other direction. So every bridge means at least a major slow-down, if not a stop or a wait while the drivers figure out who got there first, which, on a long bridge, isn’t as easy as it seems. Some of the longer bridges have pull-outs half way across in case the either you or the other guy didn’t see each other at the bridgehead of both of the drivers are real buttheads and meet in the middle.
Last night we spent the night at great little log cabin on the Tasman Sea. After checking out of our cabin we walked along the beach into the little town of Hokitika, checked out a few jade stores, and watched a spectacular orange/red sunset over the Tasman Sea (between New Zealand and Australia), finally falling off to sleep with the sound the waves through the night.
Beaches on the western shore tend to be of two kinds, either rocky and inaccessible, or long stretches of black sand often filled with driftwood. I know that along Lake Michigan some people are driftwood fanatics, collecting interesting pieces for their yards. This is a driftwood paradise, with some beaches literally strewn with huge wildly twisted pieces of wood. I suppose the many rivers and streams carry dead trees down the sea where they are washed up on shore.
Today we’re headed south again to the Franz Josef glacier. Rain was predicted the night before, and we considered spending the day in Hokitika, but it was a clear bright day and we decided to set out while the sun shone. The road led along the coast again and then turned into the mountains. The western coast gets lots of rain, especially in winter, and sometimes as we drive along we could imagine ourselves in an Amazon rain forest, with moss hanging from trees, and ferns on steroids, as Jeanne says, growing to 12 feet right on the roadside. Now these are pretty much like the ferns we grow in our back yard at home, but here they have to be cut back to keep them from taking over the highway. The trees generally have a strange and wonderful look almost taking on human character, some with huge multiple trunks and others with branches like beckoning arms. I was reminded of the scene in the “Lord of the Rings” in which the trees of one forest take on human character and even talk to each other as they protect the endangered Hobbits. It’s obvious where the director got his ideas for this scene. Amazingly, the rain forest ferns and trees grow right up to the foot of the glaciers. So it’s like moving from the tropics to tundra in a few minutes. When I say tropics I should emphasize that it’s not balmy here. Most days it seldom gets over 60 f, and there’s frost some nights. Without the sun, we’re in our polartec and jackets. It is deep into autumn here, and in some areas the deciduous trees are changing color.
The Franz Josef glacier is easily accessible on foot-- just an hour’s easy walk from the parking lot to the foot of the glacier. Once there, you can see almost all the way to the top. The face of the glacier at the foot was probably 300 feet high, with deep vertical crevices. Being fall and near the end of the melting season, the glacier looks a bit like a South Bend snow pile in late February, rounded and dirty. On closer inspection what seems like dirt is actually the tiny and sometimes big rocks carved from the sides of the mountain by the glacier’s constant grinding action as it moves inexorably toward the sea.
We noticed there were some people high up at the top edge of the glacier’s face. After inspecting the walls of the canyon we detected a sort of path over the rocks to the top. So we ducked under the ropes and walked past the danger signs to hike up a twisting path of shale and rock to get to the top of the glacier’s face. At the top there was a group of a dozen or so people with official park guides putting on their crampons and getting last minute instructions before ascending the glacier itself. One of the guides took one look at us and sidled over to Jeanne and asked her whether we planned to go any further. He seemed relieved to hear that this was the extent of our ascent, and he let us go with a warning about how dangerous was to go any further on the face without a guide and “proper equipment.” Evidently our hiking poles and very nice boots weren’t very impressive.
It was a great hike and wonderful climb. We got so close to the glacier’s face that we could reach out and touch the ice, hear it crack as it melted, and see into the deep blue crevices on the surface.
Late this afternoon it was back in the car for the drive to Haast. The farther south we go the more it really feels like the wilderness it is. In fact, south of Hokitika and for about 200 miles there is only one road going east and west, and only one road along the whole western coast. And the farther south we went, the less traffic we saw. At one point we had to stop for a cattle drive that was taking one lane of the highway, waiting while a heard of huge bulls slowly walked by.

Kopua

NZ SS us low,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Us on a on the edge of a ravine a few hundren yards from the Kopua guesthouse.

A picture of the front of the Kopua monastery guest house.

NZ SS guest house porch low,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

A lovely garden and meditation hut at Kopua

NZ SS garden and hut low,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Len

NZ Len's hill top & Len low,
originally uploaded by Len and Jeanne.

Len on top of the mountain on a hike from Kopua.

Dispatch from Nelson, Friday April 29

If you’d like to check your maps, Nelson is on the northern coast of the south island of New Zealand, just west of Picton, where we landed by ferry from the north island yesterday.
Speaking of yesterday, it was not particularly exciting—just one of those traveling days. We took our rather sad leave from Kopua Southern Star Monastery just after breakfast. The monks there were so kind, welcoming, and, at the same time, committed to their life of prayer and hospitality. Both Nikko, the Guest Master, and Brian the Abbot bid us a warm farewell. Now that we will be “on the road’ again we will certainly miss the feeling of having a community to call home, if even for a week.
Today was the very first overcast and rainy day of our whole trip so far, but still, the New Zealand landscape takes on a different charm with monstrous clouds and foggy valleys. We drove down to Wellington, turned in our rented car, and boarded a large ferry bound for Picton on the south island. The crossing took about 3 hours, part of which we slept on some very comfortable couches in the lounge. We were warned that the crossing could be quite rough, but the seas tossed up only three or four foot swells today, so the gentle rolling of the ferry put us to sleep instead of making us sick. We also spent some time on deck, of course, especially to watch as we entered the long passage into Marlborough Sound into Picton. The sound is very narrow, and green, tree-covered hill rise straight up from the water’s edge. The only distraction was the smell of diesel from the ships stacks and of a huge truckload of sheep on the deck below.
On landing our rental car company was right next to the dock. The rental cars here tend to be older (the ones we’ve used so far have had at least 80,000 miles). The age sometimes shows. Our last car gradually lost all electrical window controls but one, and smelled, according to Jeanne, like a bordello. Our new one (another Corolla) has just as many miles, but is much cleaner, and has good old crank windows. They are a bit underpowered for the mountains. We tend to go from 100 Km per hour (the speed limit here) down to about 75 on a climb with the accelerator on the floor. But Jeanne thinks that’s just fine.
We headed straight from Picton to Nelson, about an hour and half trip over two very steep and curvy mountain passes, Since it was raining and misty, we couldn’t see much, but it was an exciting drive under the conditions. We were driving down one side of a mountain range around curves as slow as 30 Km per hour in deep dusk and fog when we out of the mist emerged a biker with no headlight. We’ve noticed there is a deep lust for dangerous activities among new Zealanders. One of our guidebooks describes Queensland, to the south, as a town where if you want something to “scare the crap out of you, you’ll find it here.”
We stopped overnight in Nelson because it was dark, and we had seen an interesting “Backpacker” hotel or hostel in our well-thumbed “Lonely Planet” guidebook. A word about “Backpackers.” This particular kind of accommodation seems to be missing in the US, but every little town has one here in New Zealand. They are usually big older homes, sometimes older motels. Most of them, outside the big cities at least, are fairly small having a 12 to 24 beds. The rooms tend to be of two kinds, the dorm style—a big room with bunks or single beds, and single or double rooms, which we always choose (we’re too old for dorming it). In some places there are combination rooms for just about any kind group or relationship you can think of. A few have “en suite” bathrooms, but most involve a walk down the hall, which at my age, rising almost every night for some relief, can be interesting. We’re usually the oldest guests, and the other guests, mostly traveling students, look on us with kindly curiosity, as though their parents just arrived. Backpackers are relatively cheap, about $35 US, and have a kitchen with some sort of breakfast and coffee, or you make your own, which we usually do anyway, since the typical breakfast consists of cocoa puffs and white bread. This morning a French girl spread out four huge chunks of bread and spread them with Nutella (for those of you who have never met this European delight, it’s basically chocolate and hazelnut butter, with more chocolate than nuts). Of course, the Kiwis and Aussies carry their jar of Vegamite or Marmite, which they swear is not only good for you, but just plain good. For our part, we’ve discovered a thick yogurt drink with honey that tastes wonderful on a bowl of granola, plus a boiled egg, which we carry with us in a handy little collapsible cooler.
The “Backpacker” we stayed at last night was fittingly called the Palace, an old Victorian house with spectacular woodwork on a hillside. I’m sitting now on a large wrap-around porch overlooking the city and the harbor bay off in the distance. The sun is shining again on the hills surrounding the city and on the bay in the distance, and we’re ready to hit the road again in search of some surprise that will draw us out of the car onto some trail or into some little town. The destination tonight is Westport, on the west coast. We intend this to be the northern starting point of our journey southward along the coast, which we’ve been told is the most scenic part of all, the stuff the “Lord of the Rings is made of. The only problem is that rain is being predicted there for a few more days, which will obscure the mountains and put a damper on our sight-seeing.