“do not go gentle into that good night / rage rage against the dying of the light”

Photo by Alan Taylor.

Cape Times, 29 May 2008

A township band that educates people about HIV/Aids through song and dance is taking its show to the US next week.

The seven young singers and dancers and four instrumentalists of Siyaya will perform a programme called An African Chord in major theatres in New York City, Washington, Chicago and others.

Their songs about living with Aids, the importance of treatment and preventing alcohol abuse are in English, Xhosa and Zulu, accompanied by a fusion of African pop, African mbanqanga and traditional gospel music.

“When we were founded, we were charged with coming up with a different approach to HIV/Aids education,” said musical director and composer Bogani Magatyana. “We wanted to write songs with strong messages.”

Among the pieces the band will perform in the US, Senzeni is the personal favourite of singer/dancer Nosiphiwo Bakana.

“The title means ‘What Have We Done’,” she said. “Black people are suffering – some are dying from Aids, some from hunger, crime. The song is about asking for help and hoping for a better future.”

In Cape Town, Siyaya rehearses every morning at the JL Zwane Centre, a Presbyterian church in Gugulethu, and fans out every afternoon to sing for people waiting in long qeues at HIV/Aids clinics and students in schools.

The disease has touched many of their own lives as well.

Lead guitarist Mngese Mzwandile is raising two boys, sons of his sister, who passed away last year from Aids.

“Everywhere we go, we leave a message behind,” said Mzwandile.

Currently wrapping up the recording of their CD at SABC Studios, the musicians are excited about exploring the places that they have only seen on TV.

“I can’t wait to see friendly people and people who want to know more about Aids,” said singer/dancer Nontuthuzelo Nyiki.

“We are going to rock.”

i feel very grateful to erna because thanks to her we had the privilege of seeing something incredible yesterday: a special sunday service at a township church, in xhosa, to commemorate those who’ve died from aids. (xhosa is one of south africa’s 11 official languages.)

it was about a 30-minute drive to gugulethu township’s JL Zwane, a presbyterian center that is doing hiv/aids outreach in a community still very much unwilling to deal with the pandemic.

once again, trusty old august was at the helm. he’d sensibly removed the yellow taxi sign from the roof of the car, too. though operating incognito could only go so far — once we got to gugulethu, we still had to pull into the local police station to ask directions.

at the specific request of my travel mates, i more or less restrained myself from snapping away with my mammoth cammy. but how tempting it was to capture the remarkable scenes of township life as we cruised by. women were done up in their sunday best, suits of vibrant colors, with patent leather heels — not a small number of them stilettos — toting along one to four children in similarly spirited ensembles. any one of them had more style than a whole presbyterian church in america combined.

gugulethu: the name means “our pride,” but the main road of this small village could not be more indifferently named. it was called simply NY 1 — NY for native yards — by the perpetrators of apartheid.

we rounded a bend and JL Zwane came into view — along with two cinder blocks of tour buses, expiring exhaust as they idled in front: a visiting american group that has been working with the church.

JL Zwane

we took our seats and a friendly church lady came around with red ribbon stickers.

a closer look at the sticker

not with a prayer did the service begin; rather, a hymn in xhosa — one of many by the stirring siyaya choir throughout the next hour and a half. the choir sat as part of the congregation, which now numbered at least 100, in the front row, wielding bells and a small leather pillow that one of the members slapped heartily to the beat of each hymn.

there’s something terribly moving, terribly profound about these xhosa voices in song. erna told us she held back her tears for our sakes. it’s so hard to describe what it is — i’ve rewritten this paragraph 5 times now. i think it comes deep from inside, some place lower than the depth of the body. somewhere under the feet, channeled from the earth. and everybody in the church sang. they not only sang, they spontaneously harmonized and echoed. risking the ire of a nearby prof i sneaked a short video with shannon’s cybershot.

someone handed us brown leather-bound hymn books so that we could follow along. titled “amaculo aseRhabe,” or “the hymns of the rhabe people,” the book’s history was outlined in a brief but fascinating foreword. it was named after the xhosa chief rharhabe in remembrance of his hospitality to glasgow missionaries who came to the eastern cape in the early 1800s. the scots translated their hymns into xhosa but had to compose anew all the melodies. a missionary press (lovedale press) then gathered these 300 hymns for publication in 1929.

JL Zwane’s director, dr. spiwo xapile, came up briefly to introduce a small group of women, members of the church’s hiv/aids support group. one mother, clutching a small boy to her thigh as she would a tissue, told of how she lost her sister to aids and soon after found out that she herself was hiv positive. she is dying yet her family still refuses to acknowledge the disease. shannon was moved to tears. we all lit white candles, and someone read aloud the names of all those friends and family who have died of aids.

dr. spiwo, briefly at the pulpit

spiwo then introduced the day’s guest, allan boesak. a controversial figure in south africa, boesak is both a hero of the apartheid struggle and the center of several scandals. yesterday, the charismatic preacher told the story, from john 9, of the blind man by the side of the road. jesus spotted him, called him forth and healed him.

boesak drew a parallel between the man’s blindness and aids. many in the townships hold the belief that aids is god’s punishment for the afflicted’s sins. in fact, many of JL Zwane’s original parishioners left when the church began its aids outreach programs. “it’s not your place to work out how many sinners are in this room and how they will be punished by God,” boesak reminded the congregation.

what can we do in the face of such a hopeless, cureless disease? we can do as jesus did with the blind man by the side of the road: reach out and do something to ease his suffering. and we can “rise up in witness and in testimony,” said boesak. rather than turning a blind eye, we can “see somebody,” he said.

“see somebody. see somebody.”