Afrika Burns

Our group of ten meets in St. Peter’s Square, the main shopping centre in Observatory. We are heading to the desert for the African version of Burning Man, called Afrika Burns. Packing is taking longer than expected. Guitars must sit on laps. All non-perishable foods have been piled into a giant plastic bin, making everyone’s individual dietary preferences public. Cans of chickpeas, dry pasta, tea bags, chocolate bars, rusks, artificial sweetener, dry soya milk, and marshmallows peek out from the mass of food. We’ve all bought huge 5-litre bottles of water, at least one per person per day, and these are wedges at our feet or anywhere else they will fit.

Taryn is driving her parents’ Toyota Corolla and Sam is driving the white station wagon, with a rusty trailer hooked onto the back. The first part of the journey is uneventful. I’m sitting in the back seat between Lerato and Francesca, Emily is in the passenger seat, and Taryn is driving. Music requests included Bela Fleck, Ani DiFranco, ‘90’s hits from our childhoods. At one point everyone is asleep except me and Taryn. The land gets less and less green, and the road abruptly becomes dirt, the pavement neatly stopping somewhere past Paarl.

“Did you hear that?” Taryn asks. There has been a sound, a rather mechanical pop in the back left of the car.

“Yep, I’m sure it’s fine.” I crane my head, look out the back window. “All the parts are still attached, no worries!”

Taryn smiles and chuckles but I can tell she’s still nervous. A few minutes later the car swerves and I can tell it’s not Taryn’s fault. She pulls over, says something doesn’t feel right.

“It’s totally shredded!” she reports, laughing mainly to prevent crying. This is her parents’ car and she probably had to promise them it would come back better than new.

The sleepers on either side of me are up, and we all get out to evaluate. It is, it’s completely shredded. A thousand puncture repair kits couldn’t save this tire. Our convoy was staying together, but now the station wagon is long gone. They don’t have a spare anyway, someone says, better they get there before dark.

“Taryn, do you know how to change a tire?”

“No.” She’s embarrassed I think, which I feel bad about because she’s doing us a huge favour, driving us all out into uninhabited lands.

“Hey no problem, I know how! We just have to unload the trunk…”

15 minutes later I’ve removed the chewed piece of rubber that was once a tire and put on the spare. As I’m jacking up the back left end, Taryn shouts from the other side of the car that she doesn’t like the sound coming from the rear tire over there. It’s hissing, clearly leaking air. Everyone starts frantically flagging down passing cars, doing the requisite “hi, how are you?”, then asking sheepishly if they have a spare and do they know the size of it?

After an hour no one has been able to help and it’s getting dark. We’re passed frustration and are now just plain silly. Cars are passing less frequently now. Taryn is getting nervous.

“Taryn, that’s definitely a Toyota! I mean what else could it be?” We’ve spotted headlights in the distance, but it could be a tractor, it’s too far away to tell.

It’s a huge Land Rover with huge tires.

“Oh wow, I’m feeling good about this one. Look, I think I can actually see the little Toyota symbol!” Taryn laughs, humoring me.

It’s a bakkie (truck) and they don’t even stop when we flag them down.

Fortunately, a jam-packed car of hippie moms (and their sleeping kids) saves us. They have a can of this magical stuff that you spray directly into the tire. It’s compressed air and glue in one, so you have to drive immediately after spraying it to spread the glue around properly. It works.

We speed into the sunset triumphantly. I spot a flock of flamingos. I photograph the silhouetted plateaus against the pink sky through the window because Taryn is worried that the tire won’t hold and doesn’t want to stop, which I understand.

We pull up to the Afrika Burns info shack after dark. We pick up our tickets. Our other car has left detailed directions to the spot they’ve decided to camp at, and we find them easily. The tents are arranged in a giant clock, and our spot is at 2ish. I can see so many stars, more than I’ve every seen before. I think there are actually more stars than sky. I feel like I might cry for the first time in months.

When we get to the camp, Sam is struggling to put up the tents by himself, and everyone else is either standing around, unsure how to be helpful or hiding in the car. I start putting up another tent myself, but it’s so windy and dark that the task is nearly impossible, plus we’ve forgotten a hammer and have resorted to knocking stakes into the ground with crumbly rocks. We’ve also forgotten a critical part of the stove. Dinner is bread with various toppings. Seven of us sleep in cars that night, curled around steering wheels, waking up every few hours to shift positions.

I wake up at dawn without trying. My legs are so cramped that it actually feels like a massage to finally get out and walk around. I take my camera with me and walk the perimeter of the clock, glad that no one else seems to be awake. This is my first view of the land in the daytime. Color scheme: green, pink, orange, brown of course, everything a slightly dustier version of its pure self. Desert plants are tough, defensive things. Every plant has thorns except one patch of grass which looks like wheat but feels soft as feathery blond hair. I wonder why this plant in particular survives without thorns. Sometimes I really like being alone.

I get back to camp an hour later. The car sleepers are still sleeping, though I can’t see them because the windows are so foggy from all those bodies breathing in there all night.

Everything is so easy in the bright and windless morning. We joyfully set up the tents, borrow the stove part, eat breakfast. Simple. Lerato starts pounding on the drum and we sing every choral song we know, loudly. Nandihleli, Bawo Thixo Somandla. Several of us have been in choir together, and those that haven’t easily pick up on the melodies if not the words. We do African renditions of every other song we can think of – Cher, Bob Dylan, Backstreet Boys.

Everyone was asked to bring a contribution to Afrika Burns, and ours is a storytelling tent. We’ve picked a gazebo, littered it with pillows and books. Our first storytelling session brings an Australian loner named Jamie (Juh-ee-mee), a couple of UCT students, girls whose names I can’t remember, and a middle-aged couple decked out in bindis (stick-on third eyes; you know the kind?) and om signs and sparkling nail polish, both of them. Katherine and Richard. I struggle to take people like that seriously, people who seems to sample every Eastern religion/healing practice/style of dress for fun. It seems fake to me, like they have too much time on their hands, and I only ever see wealthy people doing this. Curious. But I shouldn’t assume that all non-Indians who wear bindis are the same “type” of person. And I’ve been known to turn to Eastern medicine when I can’t sleep, so who am I to judge?

Katherine and Richard are lovely. Katherine stays long past Taryn’s magic performance and story reading, past Emily’s hilarious rendition of a David Sideras short story, past several childrens’ stories. Katherine is intriguing. She has an 8-year-old son from another marriage. She thinks of people as mixtures of masculine and feminine characteristics, which goes against my gender re-education at Oberlin but oh well. Back when she was “in her masculine” she was a critical care nurse on an oil rig. She had her most intimate human moments as a nurse. She loved bringing order to the chaos. She’s still fascinated by the role of a nurse in a crisis and what it means to lead without offending the doctor. After her nurse years, Katherine sold her soul to the pharmaceutical industry and worked in marketing. Now she is attempting to make a living as a freelance poet.

Katherine also talked a lot about charkas, about awakening the snake at the base of the spine, allowing it to move up through our charkas, from the base chakra (Are my basic physical needs met? Am I safe? Do I feel good in my body?) to the forehead chakra (Does my path make sense? How am I helping humanity move towards a higher level of consciousness?). Katherine also studies tantra and sacred dance, and has found these to be valuable in helping her to move forward and avoid stagnation. Her tantra teacher redefines the word “virgin” as a person whose sexuality is precious to his/herself and his/her god or goddess, which I think we all found valuable for different reasons.

In the end I was honored that a woman of substance like Katherine spent so much time sharing with us young people. I felt comforted by her belief that all stages of life are beautiful, even depressed states, even lonely states. She says these are valid states of being, not to be rushed or ashamed of but respectfully acknowledged and worked through.

I started to feel bored by the afternoon of the first day, but I think this was part of it all. It was an experiment in what happens when you get 1000 people out in the middle of nowhere, far from jobs and the internet, with only other people to fill the time. In these circumstances I found myself having longer conversations, introducing myself to people more. It found it slightly uncomfortable, all this free time. On the afternoon of the second day, I became unnaturally excited at the idea of “needing” to get back to camp to cook dinner. A welcome excuse to walk with purpose, to not talk to everyone in my trajectory. Sad.

On our second day we organized a hike. My inner camp counselor took over. I demanded regular count-offs and no one was allowed to leave without appropriate footwear. Our goal was the windmill that we could just make out on the horizon. We were all ridiculously happy that morning, and we spent most of the walk screaming Disney songs, picking up rocks bits of wood and presenting them to each other (Nora, here, I want you to have this!), getting overly excited at the occasional purple wildflower.

The windmill was not as far away as it looked, and we made it in under an hour. The six of us rested and talked for some time, in the shade of a cobblestone wall that had long ago forgotten its function.

On the walk back, we crossed paths with a bushy-bearded guy wearing a blanket and carrying a jug of water. We skipped introductions and immediately began talking about the geology of the area. Every rock I saw looked volcanic to me, but Sebastien (the guy), who studies archaeology, insisted that there had never been volcanic activity in the area. He cited chemical evidence. I nodded along.

On our last day Sebastien wandered into our camp, still wearing the same blanket and looking unwell.

“I need some water. Dude, I just took so much cocaine. I mean last night, dude, someone just offered me free cocaine and I thought why would I not accept free drugs?” He is emphatic.

“Wow yeah, I don’t know.” I bring over the nearest jug of water and open it for him.

“And now I just feel really bad. I mean I’m just so depressed.” He is grinning.

“Ok, well keep drinking.”

Other people are saying hello to Sebastien, congratulating him on his excellent DJ performance last night. Beyond offering the water I don’t really know what to do or say so we lean against the car silently, until Adam, my ride back to Cape Town, announcing that we’re packed and ready.

“Keep well Sebastien.”

“Ok!” He’s grinning again and I’m glad to have a reason to extract myself.

Thandi, Khanya, Nora, Lerato, and Thabo were basically the only black people at the entire event of over 1000 people. This topic came up several times throughout our four days in the desert. We agreed that it’s partly an economic issue. You would need R350 for the ticket, a car or at least a friend with a car, time off from work, and a tent. It would also help to have gone camping before, an unlikely experience for someone from a township. Not that all black people come from townships, though, and this is in fact a tricky area for me to discuss because of my ignorance as an outsider. That said, my understanding from our discussions is that many historical, cultural, and economic factors made Afrika Burns either impractical for, unappealing to, and/or not marketed to non-whites.

I was amazed at how comfortable our black friends were, being such a tiny minority in this community. Khanya especially seemed to have no inhibitions at all, picking up little babies and loudly asking them questions in Afrikaans, then turning around and joking with old men, throwing her head back and grabbing their jackets for stability. Thandi became enchanted by a group of four very serious Israeli soldiers, recently released from service and traveling around southern Africa in a Jeep before returning home to go to college. She and Khanya both came running back to camp, eagerly presenting their arms which had been written on with marker.

“Our Hebrew names, they told us our Hebrew names! I’m Bracha and she’s Simcha!”

“Cool guys! I know my Hebrew name too.”
“You do?”

“Yep, it’s Rifka.”

“Wow, that’s incredibly beautiful. Wow.”