TANKWA I LOVE YOU!

Last year was the first time that I went to the Afrika Burn Festival in the Tankwa Karoo.  I was struck by the natural interaction taking place between the festival-goers - no one needs to explain or define themselves, there is no apologist, sorry-i'm-living-feel in the air. You express,  sing,  dance, shout and jubilate as your heart desire. Yet there is an innate respect for one another,  an unconditioned  sense of giving, community and a playful decency. A structured hierarchy is not implemented. Everyone relates with each other on a very grounded level. Like children. Layered societal complexities fall away to make place for  a simpler and more honest relating.

I used to think that I have a bit of an irreverent streak in me, as the following piece of writing I wrote after last year's Burn will attest to . But after contributing to the free expression at Afrika Burn I realise that I simply have an iconoclastic tendency that needs to be released. And in the Tankwa I can  express freely and instinctively  without frowns or reprimands thrown my way.

  

- - -

i once sat outside the Settlers Monument in Grahamstown

in a short skirt, rather unrefined with legs sprawled all over the floor

a woman came walking up to me and said

would you mind sitting more properly with your legs closed please

i was numbed and all i could do

was to scream deep inside

FUCK YOU!

i once lay in the middle of a corridor in a hotel in Windhoek, Namibia

the rooms were stifling hot and small

my partner had all his recording stuff cluttered on the bed

a family of four walked past on the way to their room

the next day we found a neatly written letter saying

please do not lie in the passage way, it embarrases my children

i was numbed and all i could do

was to scream deep inside

FUCK YOU!

i once walked barefoot in a town in France, next to lake Geneva

a bitter old man kept walking behind me muttering

pied nu, imbecile! which i could understand with my elementary French as bare feet, imbecile!

i kept on walking pretending not to understand

and too dumbstruck to respond in my elementary French screamed deep inside

FUCK YOU!

i once played a piano recital with a short red dress, bare feet and unshaven legs

one of my friends that was in the audience phoned me up later and told me

the concert was great but please next time shave your legs

i was numbed and all i could do

was to scream deep inside

FUCK YOU!

once my cousin saw me climb in my hippy red, blue and yellow coloured car

he told me with  a smooth self-assurance in his voice

i will be embarrased to be seen driving in a car like that

i was numbed and all i could do

was to scream deep inside

FUCK YOU!

i once told a friend of mine that

i have a dream to have a film crew filming me as i walk completely in the nude down

Commissioner street in centre Jo-burg

he blushed in silence and all he could muster was

just be careful, a man might get ideas and rape you

i was numbed and all i could do

was to scream deep inside

FUCK YOU!

i once went to the Tankwa, performed poetry in the nude

and there were people who respected and applauded me

i got goosepumps all over my arse and breasts and

deep inside i screamed

TANKWA, I LOVE YOU

April 2010