Hiking Minor Peak in Capetown

Sawubona all! (zulu for hello)
I am writing this blog entry from Cape Town where I will be till the 23rd with my good Jesuit friend Bruce. We are staying at a Jesuit residence where the catholic chaplain for the University of Cape town lives. It was a gorgeous 15hr drive here. Driving across the free states one could look for Kilometers across flat lands. The landscape was spotted with rolling hills pushing out of the ground. It was very reminiscent of my drive to Ft. McDermitt Nevada with TAB 4 years ago. I woke up yesterday, clouds cleared, to see mountains out of my bedroom window. Devil’s peak is greeting me as I wake. Yesterday, I hiked up to the Rhodes memorial (Cecil Rhodes was quite important in early colonial days. He also is the namesake for the Rhodes scholarship) and on to the block house, an old fort. From there I began to meander towards the Cape-town side of the mountain. My teleological side suddenly overtook me and I wanted to turn around once I touched the cliff face of the mountain. One thing led to another and 4 hours later I found myself at the top of minor peak. Well, at that point I thought it best to turn around (a thought I had already had many times throughout the hike). All this was much to the worry of my hosts. I seem to be putting my foot in the wrong places here. Perhaps it would be best to get a cell phone. Course, the catch 22 is that cell phone's make you a more likely canidate of getting mugged.



I have take advantage of the library here and have been reading about a very interesting occurrence here in South Africa. One article I was reading addressed whether a Sangoma should be able to receive communion or not. A sangoma is a traditional healer or diviner. A member of a catholic congregation could very well feel called to become a Sangoma and then after a period of time of training and experiences would become one. Buti, the local bishop of Johannesburg, says that if they would go to confession and receive absolution of course they could receive communion. He compared this to the apostles approaching Jesus saying that they had found other people casting out demons who were not of them. Jesus responds “Do not prevent him , for whoever is not against you is for you. ( Lk. 9:49-50). I would like to explore more deeply into this issue of Sangomas and of the communities relationship to the ancestors.

I went to the student mass at the university here the other day. They did the liturgical songs of the mass in 4 different languages. South Africa is a pretty unique place. It has 11 different official languages. I really enjoyed all of the music. I wish I could make it up to the DRC where they have the zairian rite. There the mass is 3 hrs long and is completly unique to the region.
Well, that's all for now. Much more to come later.


PS- I've take lots of great photos, but forgot the cord in Jo-burg. Will be many posts in 2 weeks.