Cape Town, Day 1

We have had a very busy five days in Cape Town, South Africa and are about to embark on a ten day journey back across the Atlantic.  That means Barry will have to actually work for an extended period of time.  Blogging may be slow as a result.   We thought it best to get a start tonight by offering some reflections and photos of our first day in this beautiful city, which began with a sunrise docking in the harbor at the base of Table Mountain.

Our first day in Cape Town involved Barry's second "field lab."  Father John Oliver of the Cape Town Interfaith Initiative hosted one of Barry's World Religions sections.  Barry had been put in contact with Father Oliver, an Anglican, by Methodist Bishop Peter Storey. Bishop Storey had been very engaged in the anti-apartheid struggle here and, in his retirement, has taught at Duke Divinity School.  Several years ago Barry met him when he did a series of lectures at Shenandoah.

Barry had been a bit anxious about the Field Lab since he had no contact with Father Oliver between April and about three days before we arrived in South Africa.  At that point he finally got an email from him saying, "In South Africa, everything comes together at the 11^th hour and this will too!"   He was right.

We first took a chartered bus to his church, St. Marks Anglican in the infamous "District Six."   As part of its apartheid policy in the 1970s, the South African government had leveled this area of the city and forced the 60,000 blacks and "coloreds" who lived there to re-locate in townships on the city's perimeter.  Only the religious buildings were left standing.   To this day, the area is undeveloped and only the churches and a mosque occupy the area.

At St. Marks, Father Oliver introduced us to the work of the Cape Town Interfaith Initiative and the Western Cape Religious Leaders Forum.    The mission of the CTII is "to celebrate and share the religious and spiritual diversity of the Western Cape, and to promote community interfaith understanding, harmony, and cooperation, through both awareness of universal spirituality and an honoring of the dignity of difference."   The WCRL is an effort to unite the leadership of the various religious communities to address important social and political issues related to community development, environmental justice, domestic violence, and civil liberties.  (Interestingly, when Barack Obama visited Cape Town before he was President, he wanted to learn about interfaith work in the city and was brought to visit the CTII.)

From St. Marks we walked a few hundred yards to the Muir Street Mosque.   All of my female students had brought scarfs to enable them to respect Muslim traditions related to the covering of hair in public.

The Iman, Sheikh Mohammed Moerat, welcomed us and described prayer life in the Mosque.  Most noteworthy was his explanation that men gathered for prayer in front of the woman, just as they would do if going into battle.   We toured the building and saw the elaborate facilities for washing all uncovered body parts prior to prayer.  We also saw a few children reciting the Koran under the guidance of a teacher. For most, if not all of us, it was our first visit to a Mosque.

From there we re-loaded the bus and drove to an area just outside the central city to visit the headquarters of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, that's right the orange robed Hare Krishna's.   There we heard a fairly long introduction to their beliefs and practices by their leader, a kind Bulgarian man whose name didn't get into our notes!  He and several of the monks lead us in a chant to Krishna. They also served us a wonderful vegetarian lunch of yellow rice, butternut squash, and kale in a kind of gravy.  It was quite tasty.

Barry has commented that he has always considered Hare Krishna's weird and a nuisance around airports, but he had never actually spoken to any before.  It was a very humanizing experience, that is, one that put a human face on those who have been strangers.  In that respect, it was not unlike the visit to the Mosque.

From there we drove to the outskirt of Cape Town, through one of its most well-known black townships, Gugulethu, to an "informal" community.   The community of thousands of dwellings built of corrugated tin and scrap lumber has no official, legal status.  People are not supposed to inhabit the area because it is an old chemical dump. They have no legal claim to their land and there are no public services: no police, no public sanitation, no clinics, no post office.

We were expecting to be greeted by Bishop Patrick Chibi of the Kanana African Independent Church.    As it turns out, the CTII has organized a kind of religious leadership forum in the township, and we were actually greeted by a half dozen men and women in clerical collars and several "community leaders."  We also expected them to talk to us about their Pentecostal faith.  Instead, they told us about the desperation of their community.  Sadly, they expressed a supreme hope that our visit would change their lives forever!   As one of the community leaders said, "Nothing good has happened here in the 18 years we've been here, but we can see by looking in your eyes that is about to change."

  

Pastor Chibi insisted that we visit his house. He took Barry and five or six others inside to see the "senior day care center" he has there.  Inside a dark room, without electricity, and with a dirt floor, were five or six very elderly people. From there he lead Barry by the hand to show him the nursery he is trying to start in another room.  It was clear he was pleading for assistance.  We did take up a collection on the bus to support his efforts.  It was very a very troubling experience.

From there we went back toward town to a much more comfortable area that under apartheid was for "coloreds." There we visited Rylands Hindu Temple, where their leader, Guru Krishna, told us about the life of the Hindu community in Cape Town and something about their worship.  

All in all, it was an incredible day of new experiences for all of us. Barry can't wait to read his students' "reflection papers" on the experience, which are due in a couple of days.    Several told him it was the most interesting field lab experience they've had on the trip.

When we got back to the ship we were delighted to find that our absentee ballots for the upcoming election had arrived. They have been filled out and mailed back. We have done our civic duty!