South Africa: the Cape of Good Hope - tourism: includes related articles and contacts for travel to Eastern Cape province

American Visions, Dec-Jan, 1997 by Joanne Harris

Schoolchildren in uniform are forming a human wall so strong that you can't break through it unless you, too, are a child in uniform. The crowd is unyielding on this hot spring day outside East London City Hall in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Noisy teenagers, adherents of the Azanian People's Organization, wave "Long Live AZAPO!" signs. Mothers heave heavy sighs as they carry babies on their backs and hold their older ones' hands. Men, attentive to the potentially explosive surroundings, eye the guards containing the crowd. And the international press fervidly scribbles on note pads.

Everyone here is waiting for President Nelson Mandela, whose motorcade is briskly making its way from the site of Steve Biko's grave in Ginsburg, where Mandela has just unveiled a bust of the martyred Black Consciousness Movement leader. Mandela is now scheduled to unveil a bronze statue of Biko, who was murdered by police 20 years ago to the day.

It's not good to remain in a place that has hurt you unless you transform it into a place capable of healing your wounds. Biko was murdered by agents of apartheid, and that regime tried for years to erase memories of the anti-apartheid hero who promoted black pride (and who was portrayed by Denzel Washington in the movie Cry Freedom). Today, he is being honored with a statue--a constant reminder that people laid down their lives for justice.

East London residents--proud of their country but mindful of its past--find it ironic that a statue of Biko, so loathed by the previous regime, is being permanently mounted at City Hall. However, everyone appreciates that this one act of memorializing him will play an important role in reconstruction, redressing imbalances and fostering reconciliation.

Now is the time to taste the new South Africa, which is not just erecting monuments to its heroes, it is also amending its legal system, dealing with human-rights abuses, tackling issues of land reform, redistributing wealth, and opening its arms to the world. If you accept the invitation, you won't find an inexpensive adventure, but you will find one abundant with experiences that you will savor for a lifetime.

You name it: Nighttime dining, dancing, and gambling at casinos before returning to your five-star hotel; whiling away your days watching whales and dolphins from white sandy shores. trekking along rugged wilderness trails and skiing down mountain slopes are among the country's many pleasures.

When contemplating a vacation to South Africa consider the Eastern Cape province, which offers an array of rarer treasures. You can spend a night (or two or three) at a traditional village, learning rural ways of life and participating in the chores of the day. You can visit spectacular game reserves, one of which guarantees that during the course of a two-night stay, you will see three of the Big Five (elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, lion and leopard). You can tour such historical sites as Mandela's birthplace, the Garden of Remembrance (where Steve Biko is buried) and the Bishop. Massacre (1992) Memorial. In the Cape's largest city, Port Elizabeth, you can tour the townships in the company of experienced guides.

What is now called the Eastern Cape is the traditional home of the Xhosa-speaking Nguni tribes who spearheaded the 16th-century migration down the southeast coast of Africa. The Xhosa were subsistence farmers on land that was freely available. Their economy was based on keeping animals (cattle, sheep, goats, poultry), hunting and cultivation. They were joined by the British in the 1700s and by Dutch settlers who came to be known as the Boers. In less than 100 years, the Xhosa had lost their independence to the British and Boers, and the descent to apartheid had begun. Not until 1994 did the more than 7 million people in the ethnic "homelands," which had formed the backbone of apartheid, regain their South African citizenship.

One traditional community that has initiated a cultural tourism project is Mount Frere Cultural Village. As you approach Mount Frere, riding in a van through thick brush and over bumpy red dirt roads, you feel as if the van is a capsule transporting you back through time. Relax. The pace of life is changing, and you must change with it as you enter an age where there's no electricity and no running water. There's also no getting back without your driver, but for some wonderfully insane reason, you are able to relax. Maybe it's the Eastern Cape warmth that envelops you and puts you at ease. "People of this province sing themselves out of any problem," says the minister of local government, Smuts Ngonyama.

Soon you hear ululation, and the village women enthusiastically greet their guests in Xhosa, the dominant language of the Eastern Cape, made UP of words that click and rustle softly in the wind. You won't understand their words, but you can read the generations of love on their faces as they lead you into their mud-and-daub homes. With cow-dung floors and thatched roofs, they are surprisingly cozy.