/ 8 September 1995

Acting out culture at Afro Disney

Part museum, part holiday resort, Lesedi Cultural Village offers a =D4Real=

African Experience=D5. JUSTIN PEARCE asks: What=D5s wrong with=20

THE American tourists are in traditional dress: golf shirts and polyester=

slacks. Looking quietly excited and a touch apprehensive, they meet Xolani=

Dludla, their guide, at the reception area of Lesedi Cultural Village and=

follow him through the woods to the Zulu homestead. Along the way, they pass by a cairn of stones where Dludla tells them they=

must pick up a stone from beside the path and add it to the cairn as a mark=

of respect for the ancestors. At the entrance to the compound there=D5s a=

traditional waiting area, where the two Texans pause while Dludla hollers=

=D2Sanibonani!=D3 into the compound. His greeting is answered by two young Zulu warriors, also in traditional=20 dress but modified to include bead pendants in the form of South African=20 flags. The warriors stroll out of the compound and collect the visitors=D5=

Inside, the Americans are introduced to Baba Lizwe Dlamini, headman of=20 the Zulu village. =D2Sanibonani,=D3 he greets them with the coquettish char= m of=20 the showman. =D2Do you like my hat?=D3 His hat, needless to say, is a leopard-skin number. He shows the visitors=

around the village of domed huts, shows them the tree which is the=20 traditional spot for communing with the ancestors, the equipment used for=

making sorghum beer and gives them a taste of the brew. He shows them to=20 the guest hut, =D2part Zulu, part Western=D3, and its adjoining bathroom wh=

has a traditional Zulu design on the glass shower-door. Lesedi is part museum, part holiday resort, part Afro-Disneyland situated=

in the Magaliesberg, some 60 km from Johannesburg, where tourists can=20 pay R400 a night for what the publicity pamphlet calls a Real African=20 Experience. The pamphlet promises visitors that =D2you will be house guests=

of a real traditional African family … once settled in your comfortable h=

you will get to know the many colourful and fascinating aspects of their=20

Their host homestead might be Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho or Pedi, its ethnic=20 designation determining the style of architecture, the costumes worn by=20 their hosts, the food they are served, and the niceties of hospitality. Whi=

the host villages currently represent only four cultures, Lesedi is=20 developing features that will emphasise what facilitator Peter Gordon calls=

the =D2strong points of all cultures=D3: guests will be treated to demonstr=

of Tsonga music, Ndebele beadwork, Tswana metalwork. Gordon insists that =D2it=D5s not a case of =D4let=D5s sit over here and wa= tch the=20 natives dancing=D5. It=D5s rather =D4tell me about your culture and if I wa= nt to join=20 in I=D5ll try=D5.=D3 The notion of =D2sharing culture=D3 comes quickly to the lips of anyone who= is=20 involved in the Lesedi project. Exactly what this culture is is more diffic=

to fathom. The people who enact =D2traditional culture=D3 at Lesedi have co=

from places as far away as the Eastern Cape, where being traditional was=20 not their first priority. Nothekanti Ncapha, who lives and dances in the Xhosa homestead, says=20 she is at Lesedi =D2because we love our traditions, and want to share them=

with other people=D3. She admits, though, that the clothes she wears at Les=

are not what she would wear all the time back in the Transkei. Gordon is aware of the complexities, and refutes the notion that the villag=

is artificially preserving something which left alone would have died out=

years ago. =D2We=D5ve done research and built traditional homes as they exist in rural=

areas,=D3 he explains. =D2We=D5re not taking it all back 200 years.=D3 He points out how aspects of =D2traditional=D3 dress, such as the Pedi kilt= and=20 the Basotho blanket, date from after the first encounters between Africans=

and colonists. What=D5s more, the ethnic lines along which Lesedi is=20 organised are no more ancient than the taxonomic zeal of the missionaries=

and the conquests of 19th-century kings such as Shaka and Moshoeshoe. But however much the staff may insist that Lesedi is in tune with dynamic=

contemporary rural cultures, the self-conscious curio-shop prettiness of th=

homesteads suggests a line must be drawn somewhere in order to satisfy=20 tourist expectations. You may see a Pep Stores dress in a Transkei village=

=D1 you certainly won=D5t at Lesedi. Staff member Sharon Lo believes Lesedi is important in that it preserves=20 the roots of modern South African life: =D2You can take culture and put it=

into a traditional setting here or in a shack on Orange Farm =D1 some threa=

of culture will always come through.=D3 And yet the idea persists that the version of culture which can be seen at=

Lesedi is the authentic version, and insofar as traditional culture has an=

impact on the way of life in an urban squatter camp, it is as a =D2thread=

going back to some prelapsarian state before urbanisation and modernity=20 banished traditional Africans from a mythical rural Eden. Why else would=20 tourists need to come to Lesedi for their Real African Experience? What=D5s=

wrong with Johannesburg? Kgoboko Thulo, headman of the Basotho homestead, has his own reasons=20 for being at the village, seeing his task as recreating a Basotho culture=

which is long dead. Thulo studied Basotho history and culture and worked=20 as a schoolteacher for 10 years before seeing the opportunity offered by=20 Lesedi to fulfil his vision. He is researching the creation of a Basotho=20 environment of a kind that in real life has not existed for well over a=20 century =D1 and he hopes to write a PhD as a spin-off from the process.=20 Aside from the hut he shows the tourists, there=D5s another one with=20 electricity where he works on his thesis. Not that Thulo sees culture as static, but he believes that what is accepte=

as Basotho culture these days has more to do with the missionaries than=20 with the Basotho of old: =D2I want to be able to go back and improve Basoth=

culture, not Christian culture.=D3 Baba Dlamini at the Zulu homestead speaks of a road-to-Damascus=20 experience which brought him to Lesedi. =D2The ancestors said I must follow=

in my father=D5s steps, and teach these ways to our children.=D3 Dlamini regularly visits his family in rural KwaZulu-Natal. =D2We are not=

trying to hinder what is new, but rather promote what is old.=D3 Children form a vexed question at Lesedi. Right now, there aren=D5t any=20 since there is no school=D1 and with even a traditionalist like Dlamini=20 hinting that Lesedi might not be the ideal environment for children to grow=

up in, it is difficult to see how they would fit in. Their absence is where= the=20 artificiality of Lesedi becomes most obvious, making a mockery of the=20 extended-family organisation of rural life. Lesedi can only work, Lo points out, because people live there by choice=20 =D1 and talking to people in the homesteads, their feelings range from=20 contentment to starry-eyed enthusiasm.=20 Yet, aside from the zealots like Thulo, it=D5s difficult to get a sense of = what it=20 is that makes someone leave home and family to live somewhere as=20 isolated as Lesedi. We are here to work =D1 the children are at home and we=

are sending them money. Where have you heard stories like that before?=20 Suddenly it dawns. Lesedi exists in a society where migrant labour is=20 commonplace. And for the people who take the opportunity, acting out=20 culture is probably a much nicer job than most of the other opportunities=

offered by the big city.