Ethnomusicological Treats, More Carvers, Canyon Swim

After the elephant park we drove to Grahamstown, a little university town reminiscent of Guelph. It's the home of Rhodes university, one of the top 3 in south Africa, and several colleges and private schools. These days the students are a great blend of races, and the town felt like a poster for the new South Africa, although I'm sure lots of unemployment and other problems exist.

We stayed with Jenny's cousin Christian and Mandy carver, and their son Jeremy and C's brother Ben were also there. Warm witty people - ask us to tell you the Can Doom joke! - and Jen was right at home with her peeps!

Christian is a talented musician and builder of anything from instruments to airplanes. He runs the African Musical Instrument works, producing mainly marimbas and kalimbas from Kiat (sp?) and sneeze wood, which you can only obtain from old fenceposts now. He employs 15 people, and is very hands-on. He has to do a lot of admin, but would ideally like just to go out and get people enthused about playing traditional instruments, and design new ones. He showed us a digital marimba he's working on. Here's how you tune a kalimba:

But the best moment was a performance by Christian, one of the workers and two others on marimbas. They were highly talented, and it was fabulous to be right in the midst of the loud intricate interlocking rhythms! Two of them were ex-cons, lured by a teaching program in the prison, another example of how hard a lot of black and white people are working to make this nation successful. We have video - don't know if it'll make onto this blog.

Another highlight for us was a personal tour of the International Library of African Music at Rhodes, conducted by Andrew Tracey. He's the son of Hugh Tracey, an ethnomusicologist responsible for recording and saving a lot of African folk traditions from oblivion, as many young Africans were moving away from them in the 1950s, an equivalent of what Alan Lomax did in America. It was a thrill just to meet Andrew and hear his explanations of the instruments and traditions behind them, but we also got lessons in how to play them - old xylophones, drums, Kudu horn flutes, pan pipes and mbiras (the version of the kalimba thumb piano from Zimbabwe). I had fun, but have to admit Jen held her part of the polyrhythm better than me!

Andrew and Christian played in bands together, and that's how C came to take over the Tracey factory. He and I jammed a bit, and he also took us to hilltop to fly his remote control hang glider, a simple and beautiful thing I may have to build...

Most Scenic Swim Ever

Spent today driving to Prince Albert through the two mountain ranges that separate the Small and Great Karoo. These are rolling plains, dry but green, great to cruise through with beautiful craggy peaks of folded sandstone on either side. The Meeringspoort, a pass through the mountains, was 9 km of breathtaking scenery, green vegetation in a deep valley through towering cliffs of beautiful reds, yellows, all convoluted by tectonic forces. In the middle a river flows in from a side canyon, crashing down a 60 meter waterfall into a perfect pool. Yes, the water was clear and warm, so of course we jumped in, and swam around exalting at the beautiful red rocks towering over us, and at the view along the canyon below us. A contender for the centerfold of the 'swimming around the world' book that Jen is threatening to write!