AFRIKABURN

Things I did the first weekend of May:

1.     Drove out to the middle of nowhere

2.     Went to an art festival

3.     Camped in the desert

4.     Face painted strangers

5.     Met a German man named Ralph who made me pancakes every morning

6.     Took candy from a stranger

7.     Road on a land-roving pirate ship

8.     Saw a giant structure get burnt to the ground

9.     Went to AfrikaBurn

Giant art in the middle of the desert, please.

AfrikaBurn, based on Nevada’s Burning Man, was a five-day art festival in the Karoo desert. About 3,000 setup camp, brought everything they needed for their stay, then became part of a self-sustaining community.

Here’s how they describe it: “AfrikaBurn is a creative arts and freedom of expression festival that aims to build temporary community through collaborative arts projects, in a completely non-commercial environment.” Yeah, that pretty much means giant pieces of art, good music, and hippies.

Burning Man Clan

Four friends and I drove in Friday night after absolutely packing ourselves into our car (five people, backpacks, tents, food, water, beer) for a cozy trip. After spending three hours driving down dirt roads in the pitch-black, we were met by cold, wind, and sand. We drove into this massive campsite and squeezed into what looked like a good spot. Then, Rachel and I struggled to pitch a tiny tent in the wind. I’m proud to say we were successful; I think it’s pretty clear that I’m now a champion camper. Now, it was time to roam.

Found a giant shoe. Slid down it.

I need to emphasize again that I was actually in the middle of nowhere. AfrikaBurn just sets itself up in the middle of a national park that is straight-up desert. The layout of the camp was a horseshoe, numbered like a clock from 2-10. So if you asked somewhere were they were living it would be something like “Around 5:30. Look for a bright yellow truck with a purple truck and a white truck with sheep. We’re right next to that.” Most of the music was near the ends at 10 and 2, and huge pieces of art where in the middle. I mean, huge.

When we woke up Saturday morning it was exciting to see this place in the daylight. Tents, camps, people dressed in funny costumes, decorated bikes, crazy vehicles, and more were all over the place. Our neighbors, a couple Germans who have been driving and living all over Africa for the past few years, made some mighty tasty pancakes. Then, we did a bit of face and body painting and explored the place for the afternoon.

Neighbours and "Pancake Express"

My artwork on Becca

I got some tea. I put my handprint on a large canvas. I listened to live music. I painted an umbrella, I wrote on a pyramid. I face painted strangers. Ate soup. You get the idea.

Write on the pyramid, paint an umbrella, see in man in gold leggings.

That night we made ourselves some dinner in the darkness, and also got some potjie from our neighbor, Jan McLachlan, a friendly Afrikaner who loved that we were American. Oh yeah, he couldn’t believe Rachel was a history major. “They still teach history?”

Then it was time for the BURNING. First, there were awesome fire dancers, then the GIANT burning man structure/piece of art thing got lit and fire. Everyone’s gathered around it, watching it go up in flames, and it sounds kind of stupid as I describe it, but I promise it was really, really cool. Then we explored some more. There were pretty much just a bunch of random spots with music and dancing. Like a giant cactus playing trance and the truck that was decorated like a living room with a great DJ and the truck decorated to be a pirate ship. Then I spent another cold night bundled up and snuggling with Rachy.

Burning Man Clan BURNING

Sunday was pretty similar to Saturday. Roamin’. Seeing all the cool art n’ schtuff. We also set up twister towards the middle of the horseshoe. The whole idea of AfrikaBurn is to contribute something to the non-commercial environments, and yes, this was part of our contribution.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to play Twister in the desert? After a few rounds of that, it was getting pretty toasty, since it was 37 degrees Celsius. HOT. So we went to the “carwash,” which was a big tent with a DJ and a nice mist coming from people walking around with hoses, including a little boy in a Spiderman costume.

Success!

The night also proved to be pretty similar. There were a lot of smaller burnings, as a bunch of the art got set on fire.

We left the hippies, the desert, the non-commercialism, the friendliest people super early Monday (a public holiday) morning. We saw a beautiful sunrise and made it back to Cape Town in one piece, without a flat tire (or should I say “tyre”)! Mad props to Laura’s excellent driving skillz.

So after this trip I obviously, I got really philosophical and wondered why the whole world couldn’t be like this. Then, I remembered Lord of the Flies and got back to reality. But yes, if you couldn’t already tell, this was a really silly experience but also one straight from my dreams.

 Cheers!