Beyond omqombothi and inhloko: S Africa's historical links with Kenya

When Vena Gitu,Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Nameless showcased their dancing style during the Koroga festival held at Arboretum in Nairobi on Marc 15, 2015. [File, Standard] South Africa (SA) received about 10 million tourists in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic. It has since recovered to about 8.4 million in 2023. Compare that with our data. A diversity of attractions brings tourists to SA. They include the vineyards in the Western Cape. There is something magical about winemaking. Remember, wine is the drink of the elite, including the clergy. What do the rest take? The mountains, some snow-covered in winter, are another attraction. The plains and deserts, remember the Karoo? The beaches I visited were one, beautiful and windy. The national parks are well-marketed, like Kruger. Add private game parks and farms. Add diversity of culture and one rarely acknowledged fact, SA is closer to the developed countries than the rest of Africa. Visitors feel "closer home." With 12 national languages, SA is not as culturally diverse as Kenya. The long years of British or Afrikaner rule may have muted the African cultures, but not successfully. South Africa was spared when the rest of Africa was chopped into small countries. It's such a big country, with another country inside, Lesotho! Was sparing the SA part of the long game? Think of the wealth in that country, in terms of land and minerals. Is the long game espoused by the geopolitical interests in SA, now part of BRICS (an intergovernmental organisation comprising ten countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates) and courted by the United States (US)? Can you recall Ronald Reagan's constructive engagement? On my final part of my intellectual pilgrimage in SA, I sampled a few of the attractions in KwaZulu-Natal, the province with a strong cultural identity espoused by the Zulu language, spoken everywhere from streets to offices. And in music and traditions, too. You must have followed the presidency of Jacob Zuma. I visited a Zulu cultural village about 200 kilometres north of Durban. The cost was 560 Rands, about Sh4,500. The show, for about an hour, included traditional houses, round like in most other African cultures, making traditional spears and shields and war innovations by King Shaka. Shields are symbolic in Zulu culture, even in weddings. The show demonstrated how inyanga and sangomas work together. Samples of traditional medicine, like snail shell paste, were on display. The visit was crowned with Zulu traditional dancers, who we enjoyed stomping on the ground. Curiously, I was the only "indigenous "African in the show. The women's attire signifies their marital status. Unmarried women had more of their upper bodies uncovered. And they carry luggage on their heads like many Kenyans. Necklaces made of beads were part of their attire. Strange obsession They covered their heads with a rounded hut that "bulges" out. We were allowed to take any photos. As part of the entry fee, a traditional lunch was offered. Food in Zululand is too meaty. It's the only place I found fish, beef, chicken, lamb, and sausages served together! There is a strange obsession with cow head (inhloko). My highlight in the visit was sampling omqombothi, their traditional brew popularised by singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka. It's just our busaa by another name. The next destination was St Lucia's beaches. Windy but clean. It is extensive, and no hotels by the beach. What is this obsession with "privatising "beaches in Kenya? Check around the Vasco da Gama Pillar in Malindi. An elephant taking water on the way to the beach demonstrated the potential of private game parks and farms, like Laikipia ranches. On the way back to Empangeni, I learnt about the past and the future of SA. How they married with dowry going down if you have children, and how echoes of witchcraft are still heard. One interesting case was performing a ritual to make a dead person "rest well." A cow is slaughtered, and blood is sprinkled on the grave with some alcohol too. And you pay the sangoma or Inyanga for that. It does not matter that 85 per cent of South Africans are Christians, says Dion Forster (2024). Traditional faiths have a sizeable adherent. Remember, the traditional leaders were incorporated into the South African constitution, ensuring the past will always be linked to the present and tomorrow. SA still has kings and chiefs. Why did we do away with our kings and chiefs? Yet the British monarchy remained? Like in Kenya, the past co-exists with the present. Beyond inyangas and sangomas, wooden trays (uqgoko) for serving meat are still hewed from solid wood and on sale along the highways. My last evening was a visit to a mall, which I was told is owned by a Zimbabwean. I could detect resentment of foreigners in SA, more so when Britons and Afrikaners had dominated the economy for so long. The "captive capital" is best espoused by gum tree and sugar cane plantations, plus minerals mining and processing. It will take time to undo 300 years of economic domination. BEE (Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment), might have postponed the trickle down with a new elite taking over, and probably at ease with the old elites. What does a coalition between the Democratic Alliance (DA) and ANC portend? I wanted to buy some Riesling wine. It was missing. That was a subtle sign of market segmentation. The key highlight of my visit was identifying and mapping the historical link between South Africa and Kenya. Great Trek SA pilots trained in Kenya during World War II (WWII). We found the wreckage of one of their planes in the Aberdares. SA soldiers fought against the Germans in WW I, and some are buried in Taita-Taveta. Gen Jan Smuts' WW I cars are somewhere in Nairobi. I had a South African schoolmate, Sipho Masilela. Where is he? The Boers' Great Trek ended in Kenya's white highlands, where they farmed, had a Jan van Riebeeck school and a Dutch Reformed Church near Nyahururu. Many are buried in an adjoining cemetery. Why are tombstone plaques being stolen at AIC and Anglican Church cemeteries in Nyahururu? We need to leverage this historical link to increase the level of trade and other engagements with SA. The Gravity theory of trade shows we should be trading more with SA than far, faraway countries. It was time to say nisale khale, goodbye in Zulu. Like Kenya, SA is addictive. This is unlikely to be my last dispatch from SA.

Beyond omqombothi and inhloko: S Africa's historical links with Kenya

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