Andrea grasping the importance of song

On Monday and Tuesday (the week before excursion), I attended TAC’s Western Cape Annual General Meeting (their AGM) at “The Ritz” hotel in Sea Point (Not to be confused with the Ritz Carlton). Over the two days, the conference covered the political climate over the past year, TAC’s achievements citing new health statistics such as HIV incidence, prevalence, and treatment adherence to ARVs, elections for their new Western Cape Secretariat, funding and finance reports, and drafting amendments to the constitution to be looked at TAC’s national conference next month. Looking at the schedule published the week before, I figured the conference would be fairly official; there were stringent time frames and very specific discussions that needed to be had – not to mention it would be held in Cape Town at a hotel – which meant TAC was spending a lot of money to bring all their representatives together to have important talks. However, (as is the trend in my time here) what I expected and what I experienced were two completely different things.

Check-in for the conference started at 3:00pm Monday and it would begin at 4:00. We started at 5:45. It’s not that people weren’t there by 4, it’s that there was singing and dancing to be done.

Now, looking through my ‘African goggles,’ I know ten weeks ago I would have seen the conference entirely differently. I would have thought everyone was crazy. What were these people doing dancing around in circles at the Ritz during their AGM? Was this normal? What songs are these?  What are they singing about? How does everyone know the same songs? How do they sing the click sounds in Xihosa? Is this professional? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Now I know a little better.

I don’t understand everything, but after living here for almost three months, working in Khayelitsha, and watching a film about it in our Politics of South Africa class (Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony) , I’m beginning to grasp the importance of song and dance in South Africa. It’s not a random accessory, or meaningless tangent, it’s very unifying, and empowering for people here. It’s a major symbol of resistance, it helped carry people’s hope through apartheid, and it remains an uplifting experience for those who participate. TAC was established to help mold a more perfect South Africa where all people have access to HIV prevention and ARV treatments. They campaign for equal treatment and better quality care for all. It was founded to help secure the guarantees of the constitution and to this day achieving the mission is a struggle. So to this day, song and dance remain relevant.

As employees and volunteers from all the branches in the Western Cape gathered at the hotel, people felt it necessary to remind themselves and others of their purpose there; so to begin the conference on the highest, most hopeful note possible, people danced and sang. TAC has been struggling to remain relevant and achieve meaningful progress, not to mention financially, over the past few years, and the future of the organization appears to be in jeopardy. Though it shocked me at first, the more I think about it, the more I believe it is integrally important for any organization to uplift the morale and spirits of its employees and volunteers before beginning any intense discussions about the future of itself. We are all only human, and statistics can be depressing. Sometimes progress feels like a bunch of disorganized dents attacking a problem. It’s easy to lose hope and it’s easy to give up if you don’t believe in your cause or feel connected to those around you – singing and dancing combat both of those major factors in organization dissolution. Though it’s not typical from our American perspectives, singing and dancing are incredibly important and very prevalent here. Over the course of my time here, I’ve come to love getting used to things like the spontaneous dancing and singing – the protest songs and march traditions. I feel like I’m fitting in and understanding the culture in a place I’m just a visitor in, in a way I never have before, and I like it. Cape Town is beginning to seem familiar and I’m growing to understand the people I know here more each day.