A Weekend to Remember

Greetings from a wintery, windy (lots of 40 mph gusts!), and wet Cape Town! It's like Chapel Hill or Atlanta in late February, which isn't really that bad, but it's freezing for everyone here.

This weekend was really, really great! Here's the update:

Saturday, I spent the a relaxed morning walking around the city and reading some liturgies and documents for my research. Then, at 3:00 in the afternoon, the city stopped for the rugby match between the British and Irish Lions and the Springboks (South Africa). I watched alongside everyone else, and South Africa pulled out the victory. This is a huge tour, and these "test" matches are major, major importance to almost everyone I meet!

Saturday evening, I went to dinner with Bruce, Hope(his mother), and Ethan (Bruce's nephew and Hope's grandson). Ethan is a junior in high school who was really interesting to talk to about the decreasing racial issues in South Africa and the educational system here (one of my interests that I investigate casually everywhere I travel). Then, we went to Broadway Magic at the Artscape, one of Cape Town's Theatres. Bruce thought it was very important that I see the culture in Cape Town, and I certainly was excited to go! The show was 25 or so musical songs that included popular hits like New York, New York and Seasons of Love as well as some lesser known things. The show was great, and it was really cool to see some of South Africa's best singers (such as Aviva Pelham, who performed on Broadway for years before coming home). All in all, it was a really special night.

Sunday, I went to St. Cyprian's Langa for my research (and worship). Unlike many of the services I attend, I think this one might be interesting to you, so Ill tell you about it. First, background: Langa is the oldest black/isiXhosa township, and it is poor but not one of the informal settlements where a tin shack is your home. In a lot of ways, Langa reminded me of much of Kampala; the homes are small, one-room, there was a street market, and everyone moves via minibus taxi. It's quite a striking contrast from the Cape Town city centre (see 1st 3rd world).

The service was special because it was the culmination of a 24 hour revival of the St. Bernard Mizeki Men's Guild, a group of men from all of the isiXhosa-speaking Anglican churches in the Diocese. To celebrate, all the men arrived Saturday morning (decked out in the Anglican color…purple), and prayed, dance, and sung until the Sunday morning service. From 7:00 to 9:00 AM (when the service started) Sunday, the men danced and sung through the streets. In the service, the women of the isi-Xhosa speaking churches joined (also decked out in purple). The service was especially interesting; it was a combination of very high church (really, Catholic) style (everyone crossed themselves often, the symbolic actions during Eucharist of the priest were very elaborate, there was LOTS of incense, etc.), and traditional African. The used the exact text out of the Book of Common Prayer, but they didn't say any of the liturgy. Instead, all of the liturgy was sung in a harmonized musical style with a unique-to-Langa melody. It's quite beautiful, and it was really cool to see the mixture between the Anglo-English liturgy and traditional African singing (with traditional instruments).

The service was fairly long (4 hours), so every thirty or forty-five minutes the Men's Guild and Women's Guild would stand up, start blowing their whistles, beating their drums, and we would all dance and process through the church for ten minutes. Then, back to the Liturgy!

After the service, nobody left. Instead, men and women broke up into small groups to be updated on things to be done, etc., or to talk and socialize. While this was happening, a line formed to pass in plates full of food from a kitchen. As we ate, I learned more about Langa and about the society from the gentleman who was helping me translate (since all of the service and post-service socialization were in isiXhosa).

After I left, I went almost immediately to the Cathedral to help set-up for the reception following the Evening Program, Vivaldi's Gloria. (One of the staff had fallen ill, and I didn't mind helping set up). The Gloria was a stark contrast to Langa, but the classical music among the large, stone, dark (it was the winter solstice) Cathedral was really, really moving. The choirs and orchestra put on a great performance, and the dessert reception was nice.

Monday, I explored the diversity of the Cape Town Diocese more by meeting with some of the folks at Christ Church, Kenilworth, which is a part of the St. Johns Wynberg Parish. This parish is unique, because they have a British Parliamentary charter (continued into independent South Africa) that guarantees their right to maintain evangelical worship practices and beliefs. They also own all of their own buildings, and a committee hires their rector and clergy (subject to veto by the Archbishop). This is quite unique. They call themselves evangelical and charismatic, which is a long cry from the very high style of the rest of the Diocese. I'll attend worship there Sunday evening.

After returning to Cape Town in the afternoon, I met up with my friend Anna Claire Eddington, who is a student in my year at UNC currently doing some really interesting research into women's issues on a Burch Fellowship. She's in the midst of a two week mini-internship at the Cape Times (writing a front page story!!!), and is working about a block from the Cathedral. We had coffee, and will hopefully grab lunch some time this week (I'm the one who makes things difficult by having meetings all over the greater Cape Town area).

Then, today I had the opportunity to attend the Bishop's Forum, a meeting of all the priests in the Diocese convened by the Bishop of Table Bay in Cape Town, Bishop Garth. (The Archbishop is also the Bishop of Cape Town, but as he's quite busy elsewhere, they have an acting Bishop, Garth). The Forum is part staff meeting, part professional development/continuing education, and part socialization. It was great for several reasons: I was able to connect or reconnect with several of my contacts or people I've interviewed here (and I've now spoken with about 20% of the priests in the diocese), and I also was able to hear some of the topics of discussion in the Diocese right now. The keynote speaker was an expert on Girardian thought, which is quite interesting. It was more philosophical than I was prepared for, but I did learn a lot.

Now, I'm looking forward to a busy week ahead. I have internet access every day in my office at the Cathedral, so feel free to shoot me an email and I'll respond.

Oh, and I'm going to restart the brief anecdote portion in my blog: the topic today is food prices. Over the past few weeks, I've frequented quite a number of cheap to mid-price restaurants and one quite nice one (with Bruce Saturday night). The cheap restaurants all are actually quite close to the US costs for a meal. I'll pay 3 dollars on average for a sandwich, for example, which is cheaper than the US, but not by much. The nice restaurants, however, are much, much cheaper than the US. Bruce took us to a high-end Italian restaurant on Saturday, and the entrees were about 9 dollars each (for something that would have been 20-25 in the States). It's very interesting that food prices for cheap to fancy are much closer together here and that, relative to the States, the expensive food is a much cheaper. It certainly wasn't that way in Uganda.

Until next time,

Will