Lee and Meaghan are Here!

At the University of the Free State, I prep for classes and study field notes in an office in a round building known as the Odieon.  We are quite busy there, as this is the end of the year, and the last term brings the dreaded exams in a couple of weeks.  So there is music in the practice rooms, and rehearsals for concerts and recitals and seminars and final lectures at all levels. 

UFS Graduate Music Seminar

In addition to those responsibilities I have for guest lecturing, I have developed some new skills since I came to South Africa.


I can read Facebook messages that are written 21st century text –lingo mixed with Zulu abbreviations.  I can dance the Sokkie, as long as the students keep paying my dance partner.  I can drive in the city on the left side of the road as long as the GPS is properly programmed.  I can speak English with Afrikaans and Xhosa and Sotho words sprinkled in well enough to greet most of my students and musician friends, though one wonders if it is intelligible.

I can walk into the music library and appreciate my celebrity status on the bulletin board.  The librarian Annette Bester has welcomed me in yet another way, with a display, showing my photo and resume and some photos of ASU and our Belk Library in Boone.  I can sing the Anchor Yeast song backwards and forwards.  This is because the Dinakangwedi choir at St. Mark’s church in Bloemanda was one of four finalist choirs for a commercial song context, and the voting takes place on Saturday afternoons after the commercials air on television channel SABC 1. They rehearsed daily during the week leading up to the taping, and then again several times on the day of the video shoot.  This small room of the church was transformed into television set and the singers stoically stood in place for hours being moved up and down on benches for best framing under hot lighting as they waited for instructions.   If you are reading this and want to cast a vote for St. Mark’s, both the men and women wear white with black slacks, against a purple backdrop.

Dinakangwedi Choir - Meaghan left front, Suzi and Mr. Bonisile Gcisa on far right

The most interesting component to the Anchor Yeast music was the accompaniment instrument, which was a 10 gallon metal paint container with hardware welded on the side that allowed a wire to be strung with slugs (washers).  The player used large, ribbed metal sticks and a piece of rubber stretched over the container made a great bass drum sound, then the wire with washers gave an interesting higher timbre when struck by the big sticks. 

Percussion Instrument used for accompanying choir

The movement of the choir and the rhythm of the drum was predictably impossible to predict.  When you first listen to a choir sing, you think you know where to clap and sway, but then you realize how off you are when they begin their rhythmic accompaniment.  Dr. Tracey, (the South African ethnomusicologist) told me to watch out for that, and he was right. 

Another choir at St. Rose Catholic Church was rehearsing in Bochabela Township, only a few minutes away from the excitement of the video taping.  These singers, though smaller in number, were hospitable in sharing some folkloric tunes and information about the songs in seSotho and seTswana with my students and myself.  Bonisile served as the cultural informant and translator, a role he plays quite well and seems to enjoy.  Coming from a family of language educators, he says he is obligated to express himself articulately and accurately, so lucky me, since I require clarity above all else for our discussions and his translations. 

Bonisile and Lee working in the Odieon

Having Lee and Meaghan here from Appalachian State University has been a real treat, a great relief and a fun time.  Lee is a historian who knows her way around archival resources, such as library databases and shevis completing a dual Master’s in Public History and African Studies from ASU.  Meaghan has just begun her Master’s studies in General Music and she brings the experience of teaching elementary children, as well as an organized mind and a lovely soprano voice.  Both of them have the sense of humor one would need to work with me, and both of them are inquisitive and sensitive to their unfamiliar surroundings.  This means that I can add to my list of things I can do – I can relax and enjoy my work, since they are taking notes, photos and artifacts while I talk and sing with people.  God bless them both!

Spring Break is Over

Marie-Claire and Elene

Elene’s Belgian friend Marie-Claire set up a base camp for us in Tzaneen, a small town in Venda area of Limpopo.  Tzaneen is a phenomenon of nature -  and has tropical mountain beauty, much like the mountains of central Puerto Rico - with coffee, bananas and relaxing humid air. The difference is that this tropical paradise sits in the middle of the driest water-deprived part of inhabited South Africa.  Marie-Claire and her family have property here, discovered during some philanthropic traveling with their Beligium-sponsored South African orchestral musicians.  You know it was rough going, as it always is in the field.  For example, we had to make do with cappuccino, no soymilk and only refined sugar, no splenda for sweetner.  We had to set the computer facing a certain direction to find web sites that would provide relevant phone numbers and our cell phones and blackberries had to serve as our assistants, since only so many people can travel in one small car.  OK, I’m kidding –Marie-Claire’s estate is luxurious, and I laughed at the lavish provisions she had waiting for us.  It was truly fun to pretend to be rich adventurers for a couple of hours.

Base Camp at our Tanzeen Outpost

Finding our way around this region that is part  wilderness, part - small township, and part-mountain range was not too difficult between our maps and GPS, but finding our way to some musicians willing to talk with us was quite interesting.  Marie-Claire had begun before our arrival by calling friends and asking them who knew some Venda singers.  From that point of contact, Elene and I retraced some of her phone numbers and one of Elene’s calls to a little village called Watervaal turned out to be a gold mine.  The legal secretary for an attorney who was on the list because his wife was a music teacher offered to take us straight to the home of her sister and into her neighborhood, where singers and dancers awaited our brief visit, and demonstrated Venda dancing, gospel music, Shangaan singing and dancing, children’s songs and cultural items.  On the 8-hour drive back to Bloemfontein, we marveled at the instant hospitality and the willingness to share songs with us - - complete strangers who dress and speak like aliens!  Elene never ceases to amaze me and when she changed the front tire of the car in her BARE FEET in the gravel parking lot of the guest lodge I have to say she rose to a new level of respect on my scale of really rocking cool. 

Elder Venda Women Singing Greetings

Turns out that the Shangaan (Tsonga) people are aplenty in this region, having emigrated from Mozambique and Zimbabwe  - both only a few kilometers away.  Scholars have said that the Shangaan people have gotten used to blending into neighboring cultures, so that they can work and live peacefully and yet they treasure their own heritage.  We certainly saw evidence of that juxtaposition of living among Venda, but showing pride in Shangaan music that day.  The women in the photo and other musicians sang about the slow process of fetching water, being rich (because of having grandchildren) and having foreign visitors.

Sometimes, people sing about my being there, when I show up.  One choir sang "I hope you will be giving us money now..." When I departed Zululand, my choir sang "I went to Zululand and saw so many wonderful sights and sounds...." One group of Xhosa children wishing us goodbye in Barkly East sang "we are on this earth such a short time and we praise God that we have had some time with you...."

It reminds me of an old story that anthropologists pass around, about the young American scholar who eagerly sat upon a fence post to observe the music making by African American workers back in the early 20th century deep south.  The song he transcribed basically went something like this:  "There's that white guy sitting on a fence, wasting his time and watching us work..." 

Sokkie Dancing UFS Students

My teaching began at to  Afrikaans students at the University of the Free State - who listened to my opening lecture about openness to unfamiliar musics and listening for music that is not necessarily your “own”.  Though I thought I was not getting through to them at all when they began all speaking in Afrikaans and leaving me out of the conversation, one brave soul finally explained to me that there was a suggestion on the floor. When I asked what was the suggestion, she told me we ought to go together, as a class, to where they like to hear music.  So we did. 

We went to a place where Afrikaans music pounded through the sound system and the sokkie dance is a way of life.  This partner style of dancing is a little like what used to be called shagging in the U.S., but this generation and these students know that term to mean something else, thanks to Austin Powers.

Suzi learning Sokkie

Class Research Trip

At the end of the week, I began delving into local township music with a visit to the St. Mark Catholic Church youth choir, where I am learning some beautiful old Xhosa and Sotho songs.   My next blog is going to include some of the events already happening as a result of the new Choir and my competent cultural informant and culture bearer Mr. Bonisile Gcisa.  I cannot pronounce his last name yet, because of the Xhosa click that is sounded for the "gc"letters (different from the Zulu clicks I know). Also, I've been derailed temporarily by an ear malady that has me walking sideways all weekend and I can't go back to choir practice until I can stand and walk up straight again.  Vertigo is no longer just a word in books for me.  Highly advanced South African medications are all lined up here in front of me, so don't despair dear blog followers, I'll drink them (as they say here) and be back soon!

Sorry, Photos Won't Load - Gotta read words

Now that I’m gone from KwaZulu-Natal, I’m suddenly news.  I neglected my phone for several hours as Dennis and I relaxed in the Durban breeze with a little shopping and sightseeing.  When I turned it on again, a journalist from the Saturday Independent had been frantically trying to reach me before leaving so that she could have an exclusive story about Suzi the American!

We flew with our extremely excessive baggage from Durban to Bloemfontein, where Elene Cloete met us at the airport with laughter and hugs.  Elene is now an old friend who visited us last year during her study trip to the U.S. and I call her my African sister.  Her position at the University of the Free State fit conveniently into my Fulbright proposal, so we will be working together once again, as her university students will be my students and she will supervise the service learning internship of my upcoming graduate research assistant Meaghan Dunham.  There will be two graduate students from Appalachian State University coming to Bloemfontein in October to serve as research assistants and to undergo internships in the Free State. 

The province of the Free State is quite different from KwaZulu-Natal, but the hospitality is every bit as warm.  I was welcomed at a tea by the Music Faculty on Thursday morning and introduced to my new colleagues and shown to my temporary office.  That same evening, Dennis and I were treated to the Free State Orchestra performance of Handel and Schumann music.  All day, everyone spoke quite humbly about this “little orchestra” so I went expecting something like the band in the movie The Music Man. (you know, “76 Trombones” and “Marian the Librarian”).  Ha!  This was a small orchestra, but packed a powerful performance.  The classical repertoire was a contrast to the folk songs I have been enjoying and studying, but the audience was definitely African.  That means that after a particularly well-executed piece has finished, there are other timbres of appreciation besides just applause. 

I attended a graduate seminar where Matilde Wium, Musicology lecturer presented a paper she had given at a conference themed around the idea of hegemony.  I was interested that an entire conference would be devoted to the theme – as it is a major theme in the article that two co-authors and I have just finished revising for an international journal.  (Our article focuses on cultural hegemony we find in Music Education and a teaching approach called culturally responsive teaching that could address the lack of balance in our university curricula for Music Education.)
Friday, we drove to the Cloete farm called Waterval in the Eastern Cape town of Barkly East.  Elene’s parents hosted us for the weekend, and provided us with a mini-briefing that included a history lesson for Dennis, Afrikaans language tutoring for me and traditional Afrikaans meals for all of us.  Dennis rode in a tandem gyrocopter about 400 meters above the earth, which at that location is a little over 5,000 feet above sea level.  As I'm returning to work at UFS, I  have a different challenge with languages than I had in Zululand.  Afrikaans, seSotho and seTswana are three new languages that represent my students and colleagues at the University of the Free State, so saying “hello” or “thank you” gets slightly more complicated.  Fortunately, we all have tea every day at 11:00 a.m. so there is some basis for communication through general slurping and nodding and chit-chatting about the day.

As if we weren’t already culturally confused, my Music Department Chairpersons Mr./Dr. and Mrs./Dr. Viljoen (husband and wife) took Dennis and me out to a Chinese restaurant, where the owner/cook Frankie is also a Chinese musician working in my building as community partner.  His food was unbelievable and nothing like I have ever tasted.  He says it’s not American - Chinese, but Chinese – Chinese, and that’s all the difference.  He directs the Chinese orchestra in Bloemfontein, and most of the players take private lessons from Frankie.  So he teaches lessons from 7:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. then runs down to the restaurant to cook lunch, then comes back to teach all afternoon – then back to the restaurant for dinner.  Whew!