My South African cultural experience at Macufe

LAST week I promised readers of this paper, and in particular this column, a bit more about my Macufe experience in South Africa. Mangaung Cultural Festival is an annual Bloemfontein arts event.

This year’s edition took place two weeks ago. Bloemfontein itself is actually a peaceful city as I discovered. I have never felt safer in South Africa than I was in Bloemfontein.

Tired of being on the road for hours and hours the minute I got there I decided to walk and get to know the place. So, I walked for hours and never at any moment felt threatened or unsafe. Johannesburg is a different story.

One of the evenings I was late for a concert and called a taxi but it delayed so I just walked to the concert venue.

The streets had many other people enjoying the cool Friday night breeze. In my previous article I talked about how I got to Bloemfontein and could hardly find a place to stay as most hotels and guest houses were fully booked. My second shock was learning that most hotels and lodges actually double their charges during the festival time.

They call it the Macufe special. I was to experience this Macufe special again when coming back home as the bus fare from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg had tripled!

Besides these shocks I had a great time, learnt a few things and was able to benchmark and compare with what we do back home.

There is no difference in terms of planning and dreaming. The only big difference is funding as Macufe is government funded. And we are not talking about after thought funding and small moneys.

We are talking reasonable funding to enable the festival to attract and host big industry stars. On their line-up they had two US stars in Deborah Cox and Kirk Whalum. These two obviously did not come cheap.

There was also the big South African names like Thandiswa Mazwai, Lira, Vusi Nova, Lady Zamar, Prince Kaybee, Judith Sephuma and many others. The festival comedy had the whois-who of South African comedy.

My real interests were in their Divas Concert whose idea is almost the same with Intwasa’s Women, Wine & Words. Both are about women empowerment and celebrating women and their creativity. It was a star-studded event.

Full house. The place must have had over 5 000 people and more. And the atmosphere was electric. People were there to enjoy themselves. And they paid good money for that. 300 rands for a night of fun.

I loved seeing Deborah Cox on stage. I was excited seeing Lira. But my performance of the night belonged to Thandiswa Mazwai. She is not just a performer. She is now a teacher and activist in the mould of Miriam Makeba, Salif Keita and Fela Kuti. She uses her music and the power of her voice to talk about issues she feels strongly about.

That night through her music she talked about the importance of black people owning land. She told the 5 000-plus audience that Africans are one. That the borders that separate us are man-made — that white people put them so they could keep us apart. She preached unity and denounced Afrophobia. And nothing could have been inspiring to a foreigner in the middle of South Africa, especially after the recent xenophobia attacks.

After the Divas Concert focus shifted to the main concert, which is basically the face of the festival and the very event that defines Macufe. I got to the venue when it was half full. What was interesting was the crowds that were trooping towards the entrance. People moved in groups, either as family or friends.

They carried their chairs, cooler boxes and food. It was obvious everyone was coming for a good time. By about 4pm the place was packed. People sitting in the park, in the sun and enjoying themselves.

The music, from the DJs and the artistes was 99% South African. The people sang along to most of it. They danced. They enjoyed themselves. I was impressed by the orderly nature of this huge crowd. Even though people were drinking I never witnessed some fights or bad incidents. I never at one point felt threatened or unsafe. So, in the comfort of this crowd I enjoyed the performances of Vusi Nova, Deborah Cox and others.

Perhaps the only disappointment for me was the failure to see and maybe engage with emerging South African artistes — especially Bloemfontein artists.

But then the reality is that Macufe is not a community festival but a commercial one whose focus is big entertainment and pushing the tourism card. That being said it was a great learning platform and a totally amazing experience.