From Africa to Ankara, More Experiments in Ethnographic Narration/Fiction
"You know a white South African man would not sleep in the same bed with a black man. As soon as he saw the arrangement in this guest house, he would say 'Hey Piet, find me another room to stay in'. But then you are an American and you have Obama. There is hope!" Well I appreciated his optimism, but it may be too early to say much on that front. I stood in the doorway chatting to Reverend Smith wondering when we would set off to Moutouleng. There we were to meet with the local sangomas (traditional healers) and to see a sacred body of water, after which we headed to a holy cave where venerated men and women live or spend much of their time engaged in ritual and prayer, a continuation of ancient religious traditions. Some of these places may be among the earliest continuously ritualized sites on our planet. Here many woke to make their invocations early, in the middle of the night, as soon as they saw the Morning Star, linked in mythos to this site, where I had...