Better Yet, Hope

Last week, I betook myself to a reading at the Book Lounge, where there was not only good poetry but complimentary wine and hors d’oeuvres. I would have it noted, however, that I christened the Book Lounge my favorite bookstore in the world—a not inconsiderable honor, given the time I’ve spent book shopping in foreign countries—before the miraculous appearance of free food and alcohol. I will be seriously displeased if I hear of anyone visiting Cape Town without hauling up the top of Buitenkant Street, sitting on what might be the most comfortable sofa in the world, and admiring one of the city’s best Mountain views with a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other. Truly, the only thing this place lacks is a cat named for an obscure author.

At the reading, half-English, half-Sri Lankan poet Seni Seneviratne shared from her new collection Wild Cinnamon and Winter Skin and sang several Yorkshire folk songs. I left resolved to make readings a regular part of my life—especially if they feed you—and with one line of Seni’s knocking around in my head. The poem is set in her native Leeds, where an Italophile industrialist adorned his factory with copies of three famous towers from Florence, Verona and Tuscany respectively. Her grandfather, she writes, would take the long way home from his job at a mill to pass these foreign follies because he “craved the comfort of a wider view.”

That’s the line that stuck in my head—“he craved the comfort of a wider view”—perhaps because a view that has widened to include both Camps Bay and Khayelitsha provides little comfort. Thanks to the Lonely Planet, of course, I knew before I came that one was a stunning seaside suburb and home to some of the priciest real estate in Africa and the other a desperately poor township on the outer edge of the Cape Flats. But now I know them as the homes of friends: where Richard edits his documentaries on Cape Town life for public television and where Mfundiso lives and studies to be an electrical engineer. Where Asandiswa was robbed and made to watch three men rape her best friend on their way to school last year.

A week after telling us that story, Asandiswa is climbing out of the back seat of my car and making her way home through the warren of shacks on the edge of Khayelitsha. With a stream of commentary on his beloved but beleaguered township interrupted by “lefts” and “rights” at crucial junctures, Simcelile has guided me to the entrance to the N2, where my path home is straight and can be taken at 100 kilometers per hour. Nonetheless, he places my purse under his seat and tells me to lock my doors as he gets out of the car.“Thank you, Jenn-eee!” Mfundiso hums, waving at me, still impeccably dressed after our wet and hectic day. I watch them disappear into the gathering Cape dusk and begin to sob as I drive away; there is nothing I can do to insure that they get home safely tomorrow.

Nor can I do much from across the ocean to help my students at New Africa achieve their dreams. They are so brave just to dream them in the face of the obstacles that appear again and again in improvisations; their stories of violence, drug use, poverty, sexual abuse and HIV are not gleaned from Law and Order re-runs. In a country that increasingly retreats behind locked doors and high-voltage electrical fences, they have chosen a profession that demands and depends on public conversations. May we all be as brave in our dreams and our endeavors.

They also prove that a wider view can provide comfort or, better yet, hope. My view last Sunday widened to include 2,000 beneficiaries and supporters of the Treatment Action Campaign, the leading HIV/AIDS advocacy group in South Africa. We met and marched through central Cape Town to demand more resources for and better management of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis prevention and care.* Three American friends and I went, one of whom is writing her thesis on civil society organizations and AIDS in South Africa and who had personally folded all 2,000 bright red “HIV Positive” t-shirts sported by the marchers. We were a bright red river streaming down Kaizergracht, Darling, and onto Strand as the sun tinted Table Mountain pink and then went down. And, based on this not inconsiderable sample, I am willing to conclude that all Black South Africans can not only sing but harmonize spontaneously. I will never forget the sound of our voices, of my wordless humming and their flowing, plummeting isiXhosa syllables filling the streets of the central business district.

Another way to gain a wider view is to climb a mountain, or at least go for a run on top of one. Thanks to Cape Town’s spectacular topography, I have done both frequently during my stay here. Wednesday’s run, my first since jamming a toe a few weeks ago, was a glorious jaunt from the Lion’s Head parking lot to Signal Hill, from which they fire a cannon every day at noon so that Capetonians can’t take too long a lunch break. Signal Hill is also called Lion’s Rump, so I guess I ran along its spine.

Lion's Head and Rump from the Cable Car.

In typical Cape Town fashion, it was sunny on the Cape Flats, pouring in Woodstock, misty in Camps Bay and windy everywhere. I never tire of watching the play of light and cloud on a stormy day, a pleasure that is perhaps closed to those reared in sunnier climates. The view from the Spine, as I have decided to call it, takes in the tankers in Table Bay, the Flats, the City Bowl, Robben Island, Green Point and the new World Cup stadium, and a sliver of the Twelve Apostles as they disappear down the Atlantic Coast. It is truly a wider view, and as I rounded a corner on my way back, a brilliant shard of rainbow shot heavenward from the shoddy streets of Salt River and disappeared into the Table Cloth streaming across the Mountain.

*You can read about TAC and the march at http://www.tac.org.za/community/node/2722.