Johnny Clegg at Kirstenbosch

Some may remember passing mentions of the individual known as Johnny Clegg. He plays World Music, particularly, a meld of Zulu traditions with European styles (like Celtic). He's a pretty sweet guy, making good music and pissing off the Apartheid regimes of the 80's by playing interracial music with an interracial band featuring lots of protest songs.

Every summer, the National Botanical Gardens at Kirstenbosch holds a series of sunset concerts. Clegg opened for this year's season. Clegg was the first musical act I was introduced to when I arrived, and I have quickly become a fan. I've been to Kirstenbosch before, and it is a picturesque garden to be sure. However, I've never been for a concert, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

 Shit! I hate sit-down-picnic-lawn concerts. I despise them more than life itself.

Please allow me to have a brief bit of your time to expand this hatred into one of my traditional rants. Premise: lawn concerts suck. Why do I think lawn concerts suck? Oh, let me tell you.

Firstly, if you don't realize it is a lawn concert, you also do not realize that everyone gets there early and sets up their huge blankets, propped chairs, and braai, because that's the only way to maximize your ability to be a huge asshole and take up as much prime space as possible. By the time I arrived (an hour before the start) there was not a speck of green grass showing under the blankets.

Secondly, because they've gone to all the trouble noted above, everyone just sits there the whole concert. By the end, people finally got into things and stood up. I think that most of them would have rather been sitting, but enough people were standing and blocking the view that critical mass was achieved and the chain reaction carried them all from there. However, once they began to stand, there was nothing to do but dance awkwardly in place. No pit, no mingling, no sense of... togetherness. This seems sort of important for the style and meaning of Johnny Clegg's music. And sure, I'm a little spoiled from being raised on Flogging Molly concerts.

Thirdly, everyone is a cut-throat about their space. In a pit, people are cut-throat as well, but there is no personal space and everyone knows that. In a pit, its an aggressive type of cut-throat; on the lawn, it is passive-aggressive. Everyone has some agenda or explanation to act unfriendly, whether it be kids or age or just longtime fandom and devotion. They will excuse away everything in the most lighthearted fashions, whereas in a pit, the word choice sounds more like "No, now stop pushing us, asshole."

Luckily for me I have been to enough concerts and understand how to best channel my own rage, so I did fine for myself. I sat myself down by the sidewalk and leaned up against a comfortable post. In exchange for finding a little extra room next to me to fit a kind Italian couple, I was offered a pad to sit on, and a glass of wine. This was my view of the stage:

..and that's all the pictures you get to see because someone involved with this concert forbid us to take pictures of the stage while the band was playing.

Thus far into the post, the setting has unfortunately overshadowed the music. This is because wild condemnation is much more interesting than thoughtful praise. And, that is all I've got for Mr. Clegg, I'm afraid. The music was great. Clegg had a great stage presence during and between songs - maybe all the South Africans knew the gist of his stories, but to an outsider they were quite thrilling and enlightening. I especially liked the strong saxophone element. I don't care what those darn critics say - the 80's got that right.

Anyway, here are some sample videos of the band:





This last clip is from a special concert in rememberance Nelson Mandela's decades long imprisonment on Robben's Island. My own story of the Robben's Island prison is interesting... and I haven't even been there yet! The tale itself ought to wait for that...

So the music was great, and despite being a lawn concert, I think I made the most of it.

Finally, I'd like to note my... numb surprise at the composition of the audience. It was about the same as the Daisies festival. This was interracial fusion music, but it was a bit depressingly white. For me, the most interesting guy in the audience was one of the ushers, a diminutive black fellow, who I could see soundlessly singing along with the lyrics while moving back and forth, directing people and keeping a an eye out.

Sigh.

The Discovery of a Lifetime

Some time ago, my South African friend, Billie, told me about this sandwich concept called a "Gatsby," which is popular in the Cape Town region and not really anywhere else in the world. The idea is that its a big old sub type sandwich except the bread is wider and its loaded down with french fries on the actual sandwich. First the layer of fries then the meaty substance of choice, cover it with some sauce, and throw some vegetables over all of it. Close the bread over it all and you've got a Gatsby.

I was very excited by the prospect of slobbering over a decadent mass of bread and meat, so Billie and I went off to find a gatsby place on Friday. They aren't so easy to locate, since the sandwich is more the product of the colored and black populations than the whites. Most white South Africans couldn't tell us anything about where to find a place, if they even knew what the sandwich was. "You'd probably have to go to the townships," one girl told us. Uh huh.

However, once we realized we were barking up the wrong tree, it wasn't too hard to find a vendor. I ordered myself a steak gatsby, which apparently means delicious Indian beef curry. It looked like this:

The photo, of course, does not do justice. A smell is worth a thousand pictures.

Then Billie offered to take pictures of me stuffing the monster into my face.

It was really tasty. Though I predictably felt a bit sick afterwards. I've since decided that I am allowed one gatsby per month, tops.

By the way, I am going to find a way to bring this delicacy to the States and start a restaurant chain which will be awesome, of course.

The True Meaning of Multi-Ethnic

When the results of a collaborative project between MIT and Stellenbosch studying the population genetics of a unique South African racial group shows up on PubMed, I really have no choice but to give it some attention.

First set of background info: in South Africa, there is a group of people known as "Coloreds" who make up about 9% of the total population, but in Cape Town, Coloreds make up a whopping 48% of the population. They are by far the largest demographic group here - second place goes to Blacks with 31%, and third is won by Whites, with 19%. The Coloreds are the result of hundreds of years of interbreeding between the whites who lived here (mostly Afrikaners), their slaves, and other random Africans who just happened to be hanging around. During Apartheid, the Coloreds were given more rights than the Blacks, but their lives were still made to suck.

So you've got this odd ethnic group which has developed over the past half millennium. I already described which groups historians think contributed to the Colored ethnicity, but it isn't a very satisfactory explanation when one wishes to ask such question as to just how much each progenitor race contributed to the formation of the Colored ethnicity.

Since creating a new race is not a particularly common phenomenon, it is an interesting thing to study. Understanding the genetic breakdown of colored South African DNA would arguably be helpful for understanding their medical conditions. Also, I think its a great case study which will become more and more relevant as mixed race breeding grows.

This was a descriptive study, and I like those because unless they're just flat out wrong (unlikely) they're just observations about how things are that we didn't know yet. All around useful stuff. Now that we know that the main contributors to the Colored race are (very very likely) Europeans, South Asians, Indonesians, and IsiXhosa relatives, one can make use of this information for medical purposes, cultural investigations, further racial foundation analyzes; all kinds of stuff.

Unless the methodology is severely flawed, and I haven't taken the time or obtained the expertise to check, then this is a solid paper.

Thanks to Dienekes over at his own genetics and anthropology blog for the link on this one.

Elephant Stone

I went up to Silvermine National Park so I could hike to the Elephant Eye on Constantiaberg. I took many pictures.

Silvermine is located "way up" in the mountains on the cape where the European plantations never reached, so the native fynbos has survived there. Fynbos is apparently a biome unique to this small region of the world - found nowhere but along the cape.

 

It isn't too far of a hike (but I don't remember the actual distance since it was in kilometers...) from parking lot across the rocks and slopes of the Silvermine ridge to reach the Elephant's Eye. One has to cross the top of the valley (seen below) just above the tree line. Then, one will reach the lookout.

In my travels thus far, the lookout provided the perfect panoramic view of the Southern Suburbs, winged by the Cape Flats and False Bay.

 

 

 

From the lookout, the Elephant Eye cave is a relatively short walk, though the slopes are sheer and the path is not so wide. Fortunately, one is protected from falling by barbed wire fences. It is as if everyone in South Africa wants to have normal fences but the fence-makers only know how to make barbed wire.

 There's nothing particular special about the above picture, but for some reason the perspective looks unnaturally warped to me.

Anyway, that's the eye. Why an elephant you may ask? Well, if you squint and turn your head a bit, it looks more like an elephant. This angle is key, though. It can be seen from several miles around if you know what to look for, but then it just looks like cliff side hole. Here, you can see the dome of the big head and the center rib of rock running past the right edge of the socket, which strongly resembles the start of a trunk.

The inside is really more interesting. Plants surround and fill the small cavern. It doesn't go very far back, unfortunately. Its been a long time since I've gone spelunking in some quality American caverns. I rather miss it.

... and that was the key photo of the trip. Within the cave is a great spot to relax in the comfort of shade and listen to the climax of Fire Upon the Deep.

 

 On the way back, I got a glimpse at the mini-highlands of Silvermine, featuring the reservoir, a popular local Braai site.

 

It looks like I'll be afforded many opportunities to go hiking in this region in the near future. I've unfortunately forgotten my camera when I've gone to Kirstenbosch and Camps Bay, but I know I'll be returning to these spots, so I'll be sure to properly photograph them then.

Extra notice

I recently was checking my statistics and found that my writings has been noticed by a South African bloke who I had the pleasure of seeing perform recently. His name is Warren Robertson, and he is was one of the guys doing stand-up at the Daisies festival. He noticed what I wrote about the comedy parts of the festival, and since I didn't have the presence of mind to mention it in the original post, I'll do it here.

I stopped by to see most of the improv portion which Warren talks about in his own Daisies Festival summary. It was a real pleasure to watch. Now being able to put the name to the face, I can verify that he (and all of them, honestly) was on fire. During the "Famous Last Words" segment I almost felt bad for the other comics since Warren was nailing the lines one after another. Great stuff.

I think I'll diverge onto a tangent, briefly. To me, improv (if it really isn't planned like they say...) seems to be one of the most impressive forms of comedy. I have seen some amazing improv shows and when they go well, I can't help but be amazed. This is a big reason why I kept coming back for more of Roadkill Buffet but not so much Plush Daddy Fly.

Anyway, Comedia put on just such a stellar improv show at Daisies. Kudos to Warren and the rest. I hope I'll get a chance to catch one of his shows the next time he comes down to the Cape. But enough gushing.



Related links:

• Warren Robertson's thefacebook page
• Nomad Comedy Guide
  
• Rob van Vuuren's Twitter

Field Report

I found this at the local market the other day. No way I could not buy it. The question is if I can ever bring myself so eat it. The package at least is must-save material. I spoke to one South African acquaintance about it, but I was left with a particular nagging question.

Is the sauce made from monkey or is it made to be used on monkey?

Sorry about the continued lack of updates and fixes - life is keeping things very busy. That just means there will be more and better material when I am afforded the opportunity to write it.

Revamping

Firstly, I've added a disclaimer to the top of the sidebar. Please read it.

Secondly, I've been somewhat unsatisfied with structure and photos in many of the posts, so I'm looking at better ways to do my thing. In the meantime, I've removed some stuff for revamping so you guys don't have to see me mucking about trying out new things. Rest assured, the content will return, and continue.

And welcome to any new visitors! I hope you enjoy my writings.

Walk on the Wild Side

Perhaps you readers remember that thing I said about it being very rare for one to ever see two baboon troops come into direct contact because of how good they are at avoiding each other.

Turns out I was dead wrong about part of that statement.

Having not accomplished jack this week thanks to the baboons being all out of place, I wanted to go out and do something. Just finding one of our missing troops would be satisfying enough. Tina and I thus decided to go look for them off in the boondocks of the left side (don't tell me it doesn't make sense - that's just what we call it) of the mountain. We had no GPS readings or anything else to go by except our ears and knowledge of where the had been the previous few days.

Our main troop was up the mountain yesterday, but not today. We drove back out and headed up to the second troop's usual spot. We asked mountain bikers for any tips as we usually do, though no one came through today. None were seen on this road. Our last ditch effort was to go up to the high road and see what we could find.

"Look! Baboons!" Tina shouted and pointed directly ahead. I hit the brake and the car ground to an abrupt halt on the dirt road, narrowly avoiding the murder of three juveniles. We hopped out for a quick inspection. After spotting a few key characters like Mortimer, Bruno, and Eva, we identified them as troop-number-two. At last!

We unpacked our stuff so we could follow them. This plan did not last long. A wahoo echoed into the forest, originating nearby. And I heard a reply from further down the mountain. Tina and I looked at each other. Neither of us was going to get real data out of this day. We both knew the other wanted to find out what was happening down there.

We followed some of the young adult males down the hill, eventually passing them when they halted. They were a bit agitated - actually the whole troop seemed more vocal and excited than usual. We crossed the lower road we had already gone through, and kept moving into the bushes.

We found our main troop. Well, we found half of them. The juveniles and sub-adults were all there, mucking about, grunting, and acting just as agitated. Bertrand, Chester, and Damian, the other three adult males, were all there, too. Only two or three adult females could be seen.

We were both quite happy to have found these guys. They were still way too high up on the mountain, and far out of their home range, but it was closer to their usual territory than in the previous few days. I felt somewhat relaxed, so I went across the road into the bushes have a celebratory pee.

As I am doing this, a wild cacophony erupts behind me. I turn around mid-stream and see a pack of  sub-adult males from troop 2 charging down the hill towards the road where all the troop 1 juveniles and sub-adults are sitting. Shit was starting real fast. As soon as I finish my piss, I turn around and dash after them, fumbling with my pants and zipper, which I manage to get closed just before I jump into the thicket of dead branches and needles after the males.

Screams and wahoos are everywhere in there, males are chasing each other up and down trees, and around frightened children. The whole place is a huge mess and I can't begin to follow everything that's happening. But I know I am witnessing a rare event. The larger defensive force of Tr.1 eventually pushes back Tr.2, out of the thicket. They take up spots in the trees nearby, and the wahooing continues. I didn't think sub-adults could wahoo. Boy was I wrong.

Tr.1 eventually pushed Tr.2 back further, a ways up the mountain. The two sub-adult forces sat there for quite some time, me sitting in the neutral zone between them, watching. The wahooing had ended, and the groups had settled down to just staring daggers at each other, a mere 20 meters between them.

This seemed to be going on forever, so I went to find Tina to see what she'd learned. She pointed out that the females were nowhere to be found, but there were still fainter wahoos coming from down the hill. We both wanted to know more.

Down through the forest, we saw a large male running around, chasing some other baboons occasionally, and even more occasionally giving a wahoo. When we reached the next road down, we saw it was Aaron, alpha king of the troop. And he had herded all the females this way, far from the site of battle. We found almost all of our missing females down there, and Aaron was being more forceful in pushing them around than we'd ever seen. He had a reputation as being a calm and "sweet" baboon, in spite of being the alpha.

It was tense down there, as one would expect from a dozen females who were being pushed away from everyone else in the troop by a single massive male. It was simmering down, though. I had seen the end of the conflict, now it was just a matter of tensions subsiding. We weren't going to wait, though. It was rather late by this point, and we'd found three of four troops in a single day with minimal advanced info.

Right now I'd like to bow to science, and give a brief description of the model which is usually (and was) obeyed during these troop-to-troop engagements. The groups get divided into two factions during these encounters: the leader males with the females, and the sub-adults and juveniles.

The sub-adults and juveniles are an excitable bunch as always, and they tend to itch for fights and new things. The cape baboons are definitely what we call neophilic. Also, the young males (of which there are many), will eventually need to emigrate from their troops, and they don't have a lot of choice. They frequently use these instances to get information about opposing females, if possible. Plus, if they're really lucky, during one of their incursions they'll be able to copulate with a female.

Which is why the alpha and most females stay very far away. The females don't care much, but the alpha doesn't want anyone getting near his females. Just as Aaron did, the alpha will herd the females away from the opposing troop, quite a distance sometimes, in order to protect them for his own good.

In the end, the troops go their own ways and it doesn't happen again for a very long time. (Un)fortunately, we're not dealing with chimpanzee warfare here in Cape Town.

Don't Let This Happen To You

A few days ago, we were up on the mountain with the troop, and followed them into the upper vineyards. This is a common place for them to forage. They don't care for the vines much, but the fallow fields nearby are perfect for them since they are filled with a wild, barley-esque grain.

The group was on edge this day, since the second troop had been spotted a few hills away. There was nothing for our troop to do but avoid them, but certain thresholds had been lowered...

Alia has been acting a bit off-color lately, probably because she is pissed that her baby died. Today, she decided to blow off some steam in the vineyards.

Alia lashed out at one of the juvenile females. We don't know why. Maybe it was a fluke, maybe she had a smaller altercation with the juvenile's mother earlier in the day and decided to take it out on the child. However, Alia is not a high ranking female, so her chasing and swatting at a higher ranked juvenile made a lot of the females unhappy.

The chase quickly changed shape, and Alia became the target of the rage of almost a dozen baboons. She screamed and ran, while the others screamed and followed. All the while, I stood in one of the vine rows with my supervisor, quietly observing and recording. Then, the chase halted, and Alia was left surrounded by the opposing force of baboons. She grunted threateningly at them, and they responded in kind.

Then, Alia turned her gaze up, towards me. I was standing a dozen meters behind the arc of baboons threatening Alia. She threat-grunted in my direction, and raised her eyebrows repeatedly, a clear aggressive gesture.

Instantaneously, the other baboons wheeled about, threat-grunted, and raised their eyebrows in my direction.I froze. I had no idea what happened; if I was their target. Bottom line was that a dozen angry baboons staring at me with murderous intent.

This is a classic Oh Shit moment in zoology. Pissing off a male is easy to fix. You back down immediately and show you are submissive. Male fights are dangerous and costly - they won't fight you if you show them they've already won. Mothers are a different story. When you're surrounded by a horde of them, it is usually very unclear why they feel threatened by you. One cannot say what the smart move is. A dozen angry baboon females can bring on far more hurt than a lone, lumbering male.

So I froze in fear.  The seconds crawled by, and after... (probably) 3 seconds, the females returned to screaming and barking and all dispersed throughout the field.

Maybe they were threatening me, maybe they were not, maybe I did something to scare them off or maybe they realized their mistake and the silliness of their actions. No one can know the mind of an angry mob, whether it be human or baboon. I prefer to just be thankful.

Birthday

We had a pleasant surprise waiting for us in the field on Monday. Well, several, actually. Firstly, despite finding "our troop" during the search the previous night, it turned out that it was an entirely different troop. We know little about them except they're small, quiet, and show up out of thin air to get in the way when you want to collect data. Their big old male was throwing a huge male fit where the adults all chased each other around while shouting and jumping.

I was following around a female I thought to be Punzle since she had a young baby who would be the target of many grunts. However, the child looked different to me. Was it just the natural process of getting older and the fur changing colors?

Quite the opposite actually. The child had become younger.

This was a true newborn baboon, a "blackie" as we call them. As one would expect, the name derives from the extreme darkness of their hair, which fades with age. Wendy had given birth sometime over the weekend and we were the first humans to see her new child. There will be a great amount of grunting in the troop with the newborn around.

The rest of the day passed as usual, and it was only when we wished to leave that an obstacle threw itself in our path.

I've mentioned Rickey before. He's a sub-adult male, probably between 6 and 7 years old. Every troop has one like him: a sub-adult who invariably has an attitude problem.

We're headed back to the car so we can go home, and there are a few juvenile males sitting on the roof. They dash away as we open the doors and start doing our thing. This is normal behavior.

However, Rickey has to one-up his little cousins, so he prances over to the car and climbs on top, refusing to move. We quickly shut the doors and step back, not sure what to do. Somehow we have to get rid of him, but will he get physically aggressive? Its unlikely, but still a considerable risk if he does get angry. Rickey uses our moments of hesitation to let loose hot piss all over the roof of the car. Truly, this is our glory.

Tina mentions some things about "testosterone" at which point, tired of waiting and sick of Freddie's antics, I say "I'll take care of it," and approach the car, key in hand. I carefully unlock the automobile, occasionally glancing at Rickey, who's head is drooped over the roof a few feet from me. No aggressive expressions from either of us. I open the door, climb in, and shut it with more than the usual force.

Rickey remains immobile. He'll never know what hit him. There are several ways to do this, and at this point, I am safe and it all just becomes enjoyable from my end. I shift into reverse before starting the car, then quickly turn the key in the ignition and pull out of the parking slot.

The combination of engine noise and sudden backwards motion sends Freddie scrambling for stable earth. We all have a good laugh, though are sobered somewhat when we remember that the back left portion of the car is covered in baboon urine. Poop and pee makes our work feel more legitimate sometimes, and it certainly gives one's car the real African feel. Real African smell, too.