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December 11th 2007 by Tina
Umoja – “The Spirit of Togetherness”

Posted under Africa & South Africa

We reached Durban after a long day in the car and checked into a terrific hostel called Gibela’s Backpackers. We had made the drive with two lovely young German girls whom we’d met on our last night in Coffee Bay. They were pleasant company and, more importantly, they had CDs! The eight hour reprieve from South African radio stations was a welcome change. We would stay only two nights in Durban, South Africa’s third largest city, on our way to Swaziland.

The owner at Gibela’s was friendly and knowledgeable. Before showing us to our rooms, he sat us down with a city map and pointed out areas of interest. He then circled two areas on the map and filled the circles with x’s, instructing us not to go into those areas under any circumstances.

After settling in, Aaron and I walked a few blocks to the restaurant district and splurged on a decadent Italian dinner with a great bottle of pinotage and then retired early to our room. Our past week of travel had taken on a rather furious pace as we realized what a long distance lay between the Garden Route and Nelspruit, where we planned to drop off the rental car. I was in need of some down time so despite the gorgeous sunny weather the next day, I spent the majority of it reading and writing while Aaron sent out the laundry and attended to some other family business around town. He finally coaxed me outside in the early afternoon for a walk to the Victoria Street Market, which is known for its eclectic mix of Indian and African wares. After a couple of wrong turns through some questionable streets (close to but technically not in the “do not enter under any circumstances” areas), we found the market and entered to find the same spices and dime store junk that we’ve found all over Africa. We made one cursory lap around the first floor and then headed back into the sunshine and made our way back to the hostel.

We had bought tickets earlier that morning for a musical theater performance called Africa Umoja. Uta and Stephanie joined us for the show, which was being held at a beautiful new casino just outside of town. “Umoja” is a Swahili word meaning “the spirit of togetherness”. The musical was created to preserve in the hearts of young Africans and share with others the music and dance of African tribal culture as it has transformed through the ages.

As we sat down in the theater, we weren’t sure what to expect but as the lights dimmed and the curtain rose, the power of Umoja took hold of us. It began with a quartet of drummers, in full tribal dress, pounding out their wild, synchronized beats with the ferocity of warriors. As we sat, riveted, the stage filled with a chorus of sleek, beautiful brown-skinned bodies in traditional beaded and multi-colored costumes of the early African tribes. The soulful singers belted out a succession of precisely tuned a cappella harmonies interspersed with passionate solos that sent chills through our bodies. The narrator of the story guided us through two hours of bold, energetic performances of songs and dances, which told a beautiful story of the changing tribal culture from the early years before the white settlers arrived in South Africa, through the painful and dehumanizing apartheid era, to the raucous erotica of today’s youth. One song that nearly brought tears to my eyes was a heartfelt cry into the wind of early apartheid-era women whose husbands left their villages to find work in the new towns, leaving the lonely women to raise the children. Another number was performed by a group of men whose only instruments were the thick industrial galoshes on their feet and the plastic garbage bins which they pounded, slapped and flipped about. It demonstrated that music is in the soul of every African and, no matter how they have struggled and how much has been taken from them, they have always found joy in their God-given beats and melodies.

The passionate performance gave us a greater understanding of the powerful effects of apartheid on the tribal communities than all of our other South African experiences combined. However, the most emotional portrayals of those painful experiences were delivered with a light-hearted humor that allowed the spellbound audience to laugh while still feeling a sting in our hearts.

The remnants of the apartheid that plagued South Africa for generations are still shockingly apparent in the township ghettos which stretch for miles on the outskirts of most major towns. The ghettos consist of hundreds to thousands of ramshackle dwellings, built practically on top of each other and constructed from whatever miscellaneous materials could be secured: scrap metal, wooden slats, old signage and often trash. The township communities house South Africa’s poor black and “coloured” (any mix of African and European descent) citizens and are a stark contrast to the lavish vineyard estates and Western-style homes which house the more affluent, predominantly white population.

As tourists, it is often easy to indulge in the comfortable Western culture of South Africa while putting the stunning economic racial disparity out of our minds…until we drive by the townships on our way to yet another beach town. As we pass by the crude communities, I am emotionally stunned by the darkness of poverty. I cannot help but stare and think about how hard a life must be that begins in there but also how much love, music and laughter is shared.

South Africa has a long way to travel down the road to redemption – a frustrating path of trial and error that our beloved United States has been traversing for the past fifty years. Africa Umoja touched our hearts. At the end, we felt like a part of something positive and inspiring for young Africans with the power and responsibility to make tomorrow better than yesterday. As the finale concluded, we cheered and clapped and, as I looked around the theater, I noticed for the first time the predominantly white audience and a sudden sadness came over me. The ratio of ticket holders for that evening’s performance solidified, in my naïve mind, the reality of just how long is that road to redemption.

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