1. Azania in Germania

I was out of breath changing between the tram and the U-bahn, the Munich underground, and was more than a little disappointed with myself for having left the ticket buying till so late. I tried hard to suppress the excitement because I would be seeing and dancing to that wonder named Bongo Maffin in less than two hours. Orchestra Baobab from Senegal, performing later, would be a bonus.

Waited in a queue for an hour — thirty people behind me. A man I know from Joburg walks past with his girlfriend. They bought their tickets weeks ago, he informs me. The day after I told him Bongo Maffin was coming. None of my friends whom I cajoled into coming tonight are here yet. … somebody else looking for a person who can buy one of her tickets. I need more than one. Clearly, I dare not really think there are no more tickets left.

Why are the cashiers still not open? Rumana does not suffer fools gladly. She want to start a revolt among those in line. . There are now close to fifty people behind me. Like the four in front of me, and I, had all done previously, the woman decides to go to the main building to demand yet another explanation. The man in front of us feigns mock embarassment and explains for some reason that,”we Germans are very strict about time, but sometimes things go terribly wrong”. He laughs. Rumana laughs for exactly thirty seconds after which time she decides that the concert should start now (because it is time) and since it is no fault of our own that we have no tickets in hand, we should storm in. This is received with much joy by those of the queue within hearing distance.

Antje, whose ticket I am also getting because she would be able to arrive only at eight, walks through the gates of Muffathalle at exactly two minutes to eight. I am amazed even though I should not be, by her unfailing ability to be here exactly when she said she would. Not too early, not too late. Anti-nationalist, revolutionary Antje, yet in this respect, so German! She looks ravishing even though she has had a very trying day, she tells us. Like Rumana, she starts almost immediately to act out what I am feeling about these cashiers which will not open. The other people in the queue enjoy all of this very much.

Finally! It is now eight minutes past 8 and there is some movement … people carrying something that looks like it might be the tickets we have been queuing to buy for the last hour. The woman behind me had seconds before decided to phone the ticket line since none of the staff at Muffathalle would give anybody an explanation in person. I sigh because I am tired of moaning. My fingers are now numb from the cold through my gloves. Doors open, cashiers open. The queue claps. Rumana does not understand why people are clapping instead of cross. Antje demands an explanation as soon as we get to the front which makes the cashier stop and struggle to offer one. This is just as well because just then Iris arrives panting and another woman we have never seen before stands really close to ask very softly if we can buy her ticket. Antje, the big rule breaker is happy to. None of the people behind us seem to either notice or mind too much.

A minute later we are in another queue, which is actually two queues: one to check in your jackets and another to enter the concert hall. They are starting to play kwaito and I am incredibly restless. My hands are still frozen. I walk calmly to the front of the queue to see why it is taking two people so long to check the tickets and let people in. I say calmly because my friends tell me later I did this calmly. Inside I feel like a junkie whose next fix is just on the other side of the wall, and hence ready to break down said wall. I notice a man wearing a Bafana Bafana shirt and temporarily forget I am angry about the line. We talk about how excited he is. He tells me “Well, I don’t know who the other people performing are, but they are supposed to be famous. All I know is that if Bongo Maffin gets to open for them, they must be fucking great!”. I am so happy now I have forgotten everything else. That is such a South African attitude. Jan, turns out to be a German who studied at UWC. No matter. He could pass for South African really well.

When Bongo Maffin take the stage, I forget myself completely, and feel like a sixteen year old. The crowd does not warm up to them instantly; it takes a few songs. But I do not care because while they are singing “Children of Zion/daughters and sons of the soil/people of Azania” from The Final Battle as their opening song, they are singing to me. How far we have come has never carried more meanings. Soon though everybody around me is dancing too.

Later when they leave the stage, the crowd does the endless clapping which means in Munich that the crowd is asking for an encore. Jan is a little sad because they did not say goodbye. I insist that Thandiswa said goodbye last. He tells me he must have been so happy dancing he did not hear. They don’t come back.

Later, I run into other South Africans with the same delirious look about the eye. We are quite an assortment: a woman who has lived in Germany for eleven years, those of us temporarily here for a few years, some on business trips for a week or so. All still Bongoluted. I hear more Xhosa/Sotho/Zulu/Tswana in those few hours than I have in months. I notice also the freedom with which we weave in and out of the different languages we speak with differing levels of ease and unease. It is clear from the accents that nobody here is speaking just their language. I have never seen so many South Africans in the same room in Germany. I am surprised that there are so many South Africans in the same Munich I have been living in for the last year. But Bongo Maffin does work wonders.

When Orchestra Baobab take the stage, I get it immediately. No wonder they were a phenomena in the 70s before they split up. It would have been a travesty to never have seen them perform. The crowd is on fire again. The performance has an energy that Baobab must have minted themselves. Everybody I know is getting their CD. Many of us woke up early the next Saturday and began the search. I am sure that all hearing them for the first time, and experiencing them that night, are definite fans now.

In the end, I remembered myself and brielfy allowed myself to be teary-eyed. Eastern Cape little girl wisdom has it that only old people cry when they are overcome with joy. Of course everybody over fifteen is old to a six year old. Still, like Stoan I too “had a vision of an Africa without borders”. Bandigodusa that night, and I was never more proud to be Afrikan. I hope the next time I come alive through Orchestra Baobab I am physically at home too.

2. Running Amok in München

I cannot decide whether this incredibly striking ring I am trying on is really beautiful or really ugly. I should not be shopping for jewellery this long before month end anyhow. What I hear next takes me a while to focus. While I have been concentrating on this piece of overpriced jewellery, four young Blackwomen have formed a line opposite me. It is one of their voices that jolts me out of my shopping daze.

“Sy kom van Suid Afrika, ek kan dit voel.” There is a lot of emphasis on the “voel”. I smile as I look up, and she simply confirms with, “né?” The others scream and the Germans are surprised since they are not used to this much commotion over jewelery. And we are some l-o-u-d Afrikan women too. Comelita has done it again! The others explain that she has an uncanny ability to feel South Africans out all over Munich. She simply looks at the person and knows.

Now, let me explain. There are many, many Black people in Munich everywhere you go. In my eagerness to spot people from eMzantsi I have often mistaken other people from home. So this is a special gift that she has. And she knows.

We talk in the middle of the shop floor for close to thirty minutes and I laugh more than I have in months. In hometalk, these girls bayaphapha. Seriously, not just a little bit. They have the latest copyright on ukuphapha. So we exchange numbers, take a picture, and promise to keep in touch.

They are all much younger than I and I am again struck by that feeling that can only come with age. I am so proud of them. I am proud of their energy, the way they speak, the clear confidence in the way they move their bodies and hands. They are like little sisters and I am so proud that they simply decided that this would be what they do. At their age I was very confident, but not that confident. My generation was the lucky one because we had just become adults when apartheid ended. These young women moved across the world just because they can, because this world belongs to them too and because they are certain that they will be let back in on their return. When I was their age, which was not that long ago, only very few, very rich white girls could afford to think of taking a few years off and trekking across the world.

I confessed, wrongly, as it turned out, that I would remember all their names but would probably not remember which face went with which. It would take me a few days, I half-apologised. No! They were going to make it very easy for me. And so they told me: C is the one with braids (as though she will never take them off), Jeanine is the one who will be whoever I want her to be, she said smiling naughtily at the reference I was expected to get by virtue of being Safrikan who presumably owns a tv. S, I just had to remember because she is from the Eastern Cape like me, whereas K is the wit one because she is the fairest and has been in Germany for two years. I told her she was practically German. And she played along and agreed saying she was, apart from the passport which they must now hurry up and offer to her so she can refuse.

Then they asked a man coming into the shop to take a picture in Afrikaans, which they did not realise, he walked away with a puzzled look. Jeanine asked why he refused, to which C remarked “hy sê hy wil ‘ie pictures van swart mense neem ‘ie”. And inbetween laughing because they all knew he did not say that, they all started making comments on the situation as though this were the most logical situation ever. There, in the middle of the people’s shop.

“Ja, I’m glad I am not from here. In South Africa, almal het regte…”

“… Ek weet nie watter section but daar is altyd ‘n section protecting you”

“Here there is rasissmus, but at home …”

“I miss home and must go … just go get …

“En kyk hoe quiet die mense shop here in die mall. In South Afrika mense praat and shop…”

“… to hear a bullet”

“Yes, on your way to the shop… or at the corner shop … cause we’re mos all crime and criminals !”

The parts which were not meant “just for us” were said in English. And people say Safrikans are so serious all the time. There I was, in the middle of the shop with these crazy very sharp women laughing like I was in my own house. And I remembered how casual people back home can be about the most piercing satire and social commentary. And I remembered as I watched them walk away after we’d hugged individually and done a group-hug, how free my freedom feels sometimes. And how kwaai it is to be a young Safrikan. Even in the middle of a quiet German mall where the people didn’t know what hit them.

As soon as they left, I had to laugh because three young women came in speaking Turkish. And they were loud! I started to wonder what would happen if I stayed in this shop for two hours. It was more active than the theatre. And so I decide that next week, I am going to cook something special, get a few drinks together and after K, Jeanine, S and C get there, we will all talk too much at the same time and still each know exactly what is going on.