This weekend was the Raka Unplugged music festival in Swellendam, about 300 kilometers from Stellenbosch. Though I'm not sure what was "unplugged" about it, since there were definitely microphones, speakers, etc. I know, I know, details shmetails.
After a three-hour drive through the mountains, we arrived at a riverside resort (basically camping grounds by a river) Friday evening. Of the buses supplied to us international students, one got super lost for several hours, one hit a guy on a bike (and then drove off!) and one repeatedly broke down, leading -- nay, practically forcing -- the passengers to load up on wine and strawberry juice-vodka concoctions. I, being the 59th person to sign up for the festival (there were 60 spots in total), got last choice and hopped on the enormous charter bus where we watched Pineapple Express and the driver told us it was alright to smoke inside and several South African men who didn't believe in the power of deodorant sat down two rows in front of me. But you know what? We didn't get lost and we didn't hit and/or kill a biker, so it was a pretty successful ride. Stepping off the bus, though, after having signed all my rights away in the Raka indemnity form (if I lost a limb, it was my problem, not theirs), I was struck by just how quaint and adorable it was. Hills upon hills, a river with a dock, a bar. While we waited for the tents to arrive (they were in the bus that repeatedly broke down) we enjoyed the magic of Black Label beer and Hunter's Dry cider (my personal favorite).
Thankfully, many of my American friends here are really skinny and outdoorsy, so the fact that we were fitting four people in a two-person tent didn't even phase me that much. But that was a terrible first night of sleep. I couldn't really straighten out the whole night and was more or less pushed into an awkward corner, unable to move. Moreover, our nearby tent neighbors seemed oblivious to the fact that tents have little to no sound privacy. And while I'm a complete gossip and admittedly have eavesdropped a few more times than I should, it was all of 4 a.m. and I honestly didn't care that she was completely high and did they really do it last night? Gross. But it was really cold and rainy -- one of my friends had earlier remarked, when I asked her if she was sleeping in a tent, that it had only rained twice in the month we've been here so she was going to sleep under the stars. I think she regretted her decision, and she spent the next night in the charter bus, free from beetles and rain and feet in your face. Before we'd called it a night, though, me and Lisa strolled around the grounds and met two South African guys with a trailer and the promise of free booze. One of them looked like a surfer -- really fit, gelled-back hair, tan -- and seemed nice enough, though it took him quite awhile to formulate sentences. The other one might have been a little brighter, though he unabashedly admitted he was a bit of a racist. At least he was being honest, I thought. And besides, racism is sort of a spectrum. You have the neo-liberal racist jokes that everyone tells to show how over racism they are, and then, the more extreme case, you have my Mamaw. She grew up in Blum, Texas, where seeing a black person was akin to seeing a dinosaur, accompanied by pointing and a rush to protect all you hold dear. "Be careful," she warned when I brought my bike over to her house in Oak Cliff to ride down her street to the park. "Let me know if any of those Negroes give you a hard time. I'll march right over there and give them a piece of my mind, tell them to go back to..."
And here I was in Africa, where these two guys were explaining why they preferred to be called "South African" rather than "African" (it was like someone calling me North American instead of American, they said) and, no joke, explaining the hardships they faced as white men in South Africa. Had Blondie not been so slow in putting together sentences, I would've assumed they were being ironic. The way they talked about black people ("you can trust one or two of them, but in a group they'll turn on you in an instant," Mr. Brown Hair said at one point) also seemed to suggest otherwise. It was a bit of a turn off, and I realized I wasn't drunk enough to deal with it. Also, I have no poker face, and my jaw repeatedly dropping after Blondie or Brown Hair said something particularly insensitive got to be a little awkward. It was disturbing to hear people talk that way because, save for family events, I'm usually pretty clear of overt racism. There, they seemed to have no qualms about their bigotry, no attempt to hide what they saw as inevitable.
The next day, I got up around 8 or 9, and it was the weirdest day. It was Valentines Day, but I was without a computer or a TV, so I wasn't constantly bombarded with images of ruby-red lips and hotties proposing and glasses of wine in dimly-lit restaurants. And we were all there for the music and pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so it wasn't like anybody was skipping off to go on a date. And for once, it was a full day of absolutely nothing to do. Whenever I'm late to something -- which is always -- I always think about how arbitrary time is, how it's a human invention, how I'd love to go somewhere time ceases to exist and the hours and days bleed into each other and no one cares because you don't have obligations to anyone. (Drugs? Nursing home?) And this Saturday, that's how it was. The first band played at 1:00, so we had hours to kill. I napped, I read a book, sat on the dock, walked around and felt the least stressed I've felt in ages. I think that was honestly the best part of the weekend, just feeling serene and free of responsibility.
And then the music started. Of course there was the obligatory weed/cigarette smoke, which I still can't get out of my hair. And there was the requisite 'shroom guy who refused to give any to Americans (...so I heard), much to the disappointment of an English major guy from my program who aspires to be a writer but also aspires to do drugs all his life. (I told him it was a bit cliche to be a druggie English major -- how original! -- but he wasn't too impressed at my insightful pearls of wisdom. "I'm not ashamed!" he asserted. "You... shouldn't be. I'm not saying you should, just that it's kind of predictable?" I offered. I don't think we're going to be friends anytime soon, though who knows? We might bond over Hemingway in our Modernism and the Short Story class. I intend to analyze the f out of this short story tonight...) And there were hipsters everywhere. But it was definitely on a smaller scale than ACL -- the stage was pretty small, and they sold 2,000 tickets in total, expecting 700-800 people each day. It was very chill -- people sat on blankets, with an enthusiastic few in the front Indie-jamming to the acoustic guitar. And some of the music -- notably the reggae and the final act, a blues band -- was pretty good. But the problem is, the bands sang entirely in Afrikaans. And of course I pretend to be cultured and try to be adventurous in music (though, honestly, KTRU tests my comfort level -- sorry, Schlossman), but I listen to just a few French songs or some Hebrew stuff before switching back to Beyonce, something I know. Something in English. Because you can appreciate the music for what it is, but if you can't tell whether he's in love and happy or whether his mother shot herself yesterday, it's a little confusing. So it was fun for a few hours, then it was, "I really wish I knew Afrikaans." Then it was completely freezing and we wrapped up in a blanket, lay down and gazed at the stars, marveling at how clear the sky was (in Texas, you'd have to drive hours in the country to get that sort of view), finding a backwards Orion's belt, soaking in the smoke and final bands. I got an Afrikaans band t-shirt (x-large, because South African girls are stick-thin) and had a, uh, short conversation with the short/ugly band member (the drummer?) about American television (what did I think about it in general? And what about the way it's used to brainwash terrorists against the U.S.?) before realizing he didn't really care how I answered because he just wanted to tell me how South African television worked and how good he thought Prisonbreak, Lost and Heroes were. It was a little less than enlightening. It was warm around the bonfire, though, so I got to ignore Shorty sometimes and focus on the drunk Americans' antics. Ah, yeah. The next morning was amazing -- no hangover -- and the last band played at noon. Then it was time to dissemble the tent and say goodbye to racist South Africans, mediocre hamburgers and tall guys with dreads.
I learned a life lesson this weekend: the mullet is not dead. Maybe in America it's the unmistakable mark of White Trash or a punchline to a joke. But here, hipster guys (and sometimes girls) don the mullet. And maybe I'm slowly getting brainwashed (I have always had questionable fashion, anyway), but sometimes it doesn't look too bad. I do need a haircut soon, and what better way to blend into the intelligentsia?
1 comment:
Yay racism!
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