Moonshining in Africa

A good night for writing, thunderstorms, lightning over African skies...
Last night I found myself staying up late, running a ferment of horse feed through a distiller. The first storms of this years rain season. Thundering and rumbling overhead, heavy rains in that dark little shack without electricity. I helped myself to an old oil-lamp and a head flashlight. I guess it felt good, not strange at all. Electricity in the air and wonder and thankfulness for the adventure. Magic and mercury in the air, the border of yet another reality was dawning, and it's flashes sprung like the seconds of illumination brought by the intense lightning.
I have been working through a lot of things the last weeks, hardship and thoughtless endurance of adversity had been very present in my mind.
When I eventually got out of Istanbul, after first waiting there a few days for a friend that sadly did not show up, I waited some more for a plane heading south. But that also turned out a negative, and I had to wait a few more days until I was allowed to board.
On my way towards an uncertain destiny, pulled onto this path by loose ends and doubtful meanings, I must admit I despaired when the British gentleman that was on the same flight course as me, warned me with a deep rooted look of fear and angst in his eye, how dangerous and crime-laden my destination was. Horrible stories of crime, murder and rape, muggings in the middle of daylight and many more, flashed my heart and gut with fear. And the few dreams I managed to have that flight, were -though they carried the special lightness of airplane dreams- filled with images of fear and my own personal limitation.
When I landed that morning in Johannesburg, I was demoralised, a part of me could feel the new energy in the air, the other wanted to jump on the plane back home. Then I called my mom and talked with her for a while. Though soothing, the conversation turned to the beckoning of a worldwide economic crisis and the fear that if economies collapse, airplane tickets home might be hard to come by. Yet another dangling illusion.
There didn't seem much to do about it, and the least we could do was try. I had one lead to go, a farm of two very nice sounding people, where I could learn about herbal medicine and leather work.
I had to book a night in a hostel to get to the busstation in time the next morning. The bus to my destination only ran once a day, at 10 in the morning. I would have been picked up by the farmers if I had arrived on Friday, but thanks to airline regulations, I had missed that opportunity.
The people of the hostel did free airport pickups and that's why I booked with them. I had read that public transportation was quite dodgy and walking around in Johannesburg was a very bad idea, especially with a backpack. The metered cabs, were expensive, and the other ones dangerous... What an atmosphere!
I got picked up by one of the hostels staff, and driven to a suburb of Jo'burg, just a bit north of downtown. With lots of deadly electric fences and anti burglar security company signs.
It felt like prison versus warzone, a mad paradise of criminality, poverty and leftover racism.
The scars of apartheid and intercultural struggle, difference and plain old misunderstanding. What a freaking mess... The hostel staff turned out to be quite opportunist and though friendly, not very warm. They seemed to fill their belly with overpricing everything since there were few alternatives for a shit scared unknowing tourist, or backpacker the like.
One can be very gutsy and not believe rumors, and I have on more than one occasion. But the atmosphere and many different opinions, told me this was not the time to try my luck.
And the general mood in my life and travel at that time didn't ask for such a thing anyway.
I found much friendship in a thin blond, and shyly smiling Swiss girl that looked in her early thirties. We started talking in the supermarket on the corner a block away from our hostel, she asked me if I wanted to walk back with her to the hostel... it's just safer you know, even here in the suburbs...
Her life's story was amazing, you would not believe for how long this girl had been travelling, and the places she had been and even in South Africa she had lived -in Cape town for a while-. Had a job there for a tourist office, underpaid of course compared to European standards.
She had really tried to live there because she really loved the country, but after the third time she had gotten mugged she gave up and went back to Switzerland, this was her goodbye vacation to this country. She told me with sadness in her eye.
We decided to cook lunch together. And she told me many stories about SA. A good introduction and all the information I needed to cling to my backpack like a madman, and be paranoid about every black person... Her views were slightly more favoring the white cause then the black. But I could find no lead of racism in her voice. I guess she, like many, regretted how badly the ANC and other political instances were running their countries. Here and in many other African countries, and how poverty, crime and racism aimed at whites, caused many white South Africans to flee the country or be very worried and uncertain about their future. It seemed that a lot of the legislation to restore the civil value and rights of black peoples, had actually turned against that of the white people.
Whereas certain laws like the new one that obliged companies to hire at least 85 percent black people, made the job market very selective. And for the first time ever, one could now see white homeless people in South Africa...
Also the Zimbabwean example was very troublesome; where white farmers and white people in general got chased out of the country, and this had made the whole food production business to collapse in a few months... A disaster! The country that was once called the breadbasket of Africa, now couldn't fill it's own plate. Empty supermarket and undernourished people everywhere... all to get rid of the white 'dominators'. I fear that certain corrupt leaders are abusing racist( wether or not historically relative) sentiment, to push their personal ideas or economic interests instead of real progress and a human centered policy. I have yet to realize how one continent can have such a continuos shitload of trouble on its back as Africa. The list seems endless, diseases get born here!

Criminal politics, war, corruption, disease, malaria, famine... why do these people have to take it all.

Anyway, sigh...

I got driven to the busstation the next morning and got on the bus. The busticket Jeanne ( the farmer woman) had reserved me online, seemed not possible, since the phones were down and they couldn't call her to check if I was indeed the person that she had ordered the ticket for... They agreed to cancel it though and refund it to her, and get me a new one for this morning.... relief!
For the first time I drove through the South African countryside and it was beautiful, though the piece I got to see that morning, quite arid.(it was soon the end of the dry season)
I arrived in Newcastle that afternoon. The busride was quite interesting, as I was very observant towards the racial differences and aspects of certain passengers... like the well dressed private school boy, that quickly got ahead of me in the line to enter the bus, to the giggling black girls and the rather overweight girl that had to push me in to get to her place. Such differences in life.

I got to Newcastle and called Jeanne who was going to pick me up in half an hour. I had heard Newcastle was a smaller farmers settlement and quite safe. I would have no problems here... I was still wary though.
I bought a coke and a bag of chips for late lunch and sat on the bench by the gasstation. The black pump attendants loved my banjo and I found myself playing them Woody Guthrie songs. They all were very friendly and had lovely smiles. Though one of them kept asking me money questions... that's a nice instrument, how much does it cost? You come from far, how much does the plane cost? And all that stuff... They just wanna feel how rich white people actually are, it's quite a prejudice to think that white people can afford everything. And though it's so easy to get annoyed by it, it is also so easy to understand and so human.
I cannot even imagine how different these people's lives must have been, and I'd like to keep my judgements and irritations to myself.

Jeanne picked me up, with her maid Emily sitting next to her. Emily had just come back from her weekend with her family. Jeanne seemed a nice woman, and how she spoke about her interest in sustainable agriculture and how it bothered her how certain individuals were pushing local communities to start producing a monoculture crop of berries, and had made these people believe that this would bring progress and prosperity to them. A blatant lie, pushed unto many a native minority in order to get them to be dependent on the western free market–system...
I could definitely resonate with this woman's views and it gave me a good feeling about the farm I was heading. The landscape became prettier on the ride there. Rolling arid grass hills, and far away mountains and sudden buttes measured against a dusky sky. It felt warm and calm, wild and welcoming. I've always like the wild countries, where not everything is surrounded and legislated yet.
Arriving on the farm I was greeted by a Big and gentle man called Hannes. He pretended to forget my name more than once, and the stories and jokes rolled out of him as naturally as water from a spring. He was an endearing man and the next few days, while Jeanne was at work he took me and Houman (my fellow wwoofer from Ohio, whom I met at the dinner table that night), for many a treat and excursion. Even though his work had been piling up on him ( he was a dental technician that worked from his home, while Jeanne was working in town, they have workers to do most of the farm chores), he took the time to make us feel very welcome.
He has yet given me so many opportunities to learn crafts and trades. He deeply apologized for not having enough time to spend with me and the leather work, but he has given me books and videos to watch and I have by now started my first Buckskin. It is a special process of tanning the skin of the animal, where you do everything by hand and by natural means, to process it into a very soft piece of leather that is perfect for clothing. I really want to learn this! Afterwards I will try and make a lot of stuff with leather, but this production process of good leather is an essential part.

I am also for the first time distilling moonshine! I started last night, under the full moon, in the right hour, to fire up the still and distill the fermented must that I and Houman had started a few days ago.
I was up until 1 am or so, and had by that time a good bunch of vodka strength alcohol. Today, me and Houman continued and got a whole bunch more. Then we started double distilling it, it must be around 95 percent now. I tried drinking it, but it evaporated in my mouth and I had to spit it out... I had a very dizzy head for half an hour or so :D. I joked to Houman while I was driving to the cornerstore ( you have to drive left hereby the way :D) that it might be methanol poisoning... some defiance of overprotected fear can be well placed sometimes.

Anyway, I've had the best times working and fishing with Houman. And when Hannes finds the time, he loves to join us and have some good old boy / bachelor times... he's like a big kid that loves steaks, moonshine and just plain old good fun.

Right now, my job consists of building a deck for one of the cottages by the dam, teaching Emily how to cook a little bit at lunchtime (she's such a sweet being), distilling alcohol and leather processing. I surely hope to pick up as much skills and experiences as possible here on the farm.
Like Piet, a friend of Hannes working here, that I asked to teach me some welding.
We had a great time at a party at his brother in laws place :D, me and Hannes and Houman walked in there way drunk. I played them banjo and apparently charmed all the older ladies until they fed me all kinds of baked and other goods, it gave me the shits and a huge hangover the next day... I remember very little :P
Anyway, it can be very nourishing and cleansing to party your ass off sometimes, though I do not condone this kind of drunkenness to my inner self. I of course felt guilty the day afterwards, I'm such a catholic sometimes :p

The workers on the farm are pretty cool younger and older guys too, They're of course black people from nearby communities, and in the past there seem to have been many little problems like not showing up some days, or too late, or sometimes things disappearing ( which is a little bigger issue). But most of them seem very gentle, but sometimes seem under some deep stress or burden. I really wish to connect with them better, and understand and speak to them. Me and Houman have definitely made some good progress, but the distance is big. And conventions don't really help. I'm still trying to feel into the situations and I don't get a lot of things immediately, but I'm getting the picture bit by bit, and hopefully it will grow and change in me.
Like William, who I and Houman told about our bet to slap the pig snoring in the mud of the dam, where we were working, now slapped the pig as well (I'm sure the pig didn't suffer) And who told me he liked the gemstone around my neck, and how he loved working with gemstones as well.
Or Boy, sort of the teamleader, and Hannes' best worker, who I tried to explain what the still was for when we were working on it.. And July and Samuel who came to try a sip this afternoon in the still room, quickly so the boss wouldn't see (I'm sure Hannes is ok with it though :D).
Or Doobie, the oldest man working on the farm. A skinny black man in his early sixties, with a few teeth, Hannes' agricultural advisor, who has an innate sense of when the rain is going to come, and spends his mornings cleaning out the stoves and caring with such gentleness for the little chicks that are growing up in the kitchen under a lamp. (Today he put there little cage in the grass and looked after them from under his big straw hat)
All these people are so beautiful, and it breaks my heart to know that a lot of them are HIV infected, and will, sooner or later, die from it.
It's a bone hard life out here.

Much love to all my friends and family and all you radiant beautiful creatures.
Take care!

Peace, love xox

steven

ps: photos will follow as soon as I get to an internet cafe!