A Man from Another Land: How Finding My Roots Changed My Life (8 page)

After a fitful night of stop-and-start sleep, I woke at 3:30 a.m. then drifted in and out of consciousness until the alarm
rang an hour later. Jenisa and I held one another tightly, lovingly. She whispered a prayer for my travel in my ear.

I climbed into the shower just before five. Eddie, my cat, was alarmingly sedate. He seemed to sense that I was leaving for
a longer time than usual and he let me off easy, sparing me his usual howling cry for food the moment he opened his eyes.

The doorbell rang at 5:15 a.m. sharp. I was dressed and ready to go! Jenisa walked into the living room, tears running down
her face. Seeing her cry killed me softly; she was usually so strong. I said, “Please don’t do that, we said we would not
be sad.” I hugged her. We exchanged our final kisses and hugs. I hated good-byes.

I was now getting into the vehicle that would catapult me toward my dream, Africa, the motherland. Ironically, I found myself
climbing inside a Lincoln Town Car. I laughed to myself at the symbolism—President Lincoln freed the slaves and now a Lincoln
limo was bringing me, a free man, to the airport for my return to Africa. It was ironic.

American Airlines flight 898 was turbulent and the movie
What Dreams May Come
with Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Jr. was playing on the monitors. The film was actually quite moving. I forced myself
to hold back the tears that were virtually popping out of my eyes. Love conquers all; that was the movie’s message.

Four hours and twenty minutes to Miami. I felt a little as I imagined my unborn son, Isaiah Akin-Olu Washington, felt all
snuggled up in his mother’s womb. My wife Jenisa and my mother Faye’s prayers for my safety had me feeling securely wrapped
in love and protection. I sensed the hand of God on me as we flew.

The pilot was extremely apologetic when, over the PA, he announced a delay. I laughed a little, thinking to myself, “Pity
the man and his machines as I ride on the wings of God.” When we landed I realized that I had been daydreaming and missed
the announcement about my connecting gate. I tried to locate the flight going to Cape Town, South Africa, on the terminal
monitor but couldn’t. I found a desk attendant and asked for help and she directed me to gate E8.

As I walked toward the gate, I noticed a very long line. As I approached the end, slightly unsure that I should be waiting
in it, I saw others already boarding. It was 4:22 p.m. and the flight was scheduled to leave at 5:00 p.m. There were two older
passengers in front of me complaining about how unsafe the flight would be if “all these people were allowed on with all their
pieces of carry-on luggage.”

“South African Airlines used to only allow two pieces at a time,” the woman snorted. “It couldn’t possibly be safe with all
this extra weight!”

I was very excited and looking forward to my time in Africa; finally I was going to step foot on the very soil I had been
dreaming of, protesting for, studying about for so many years. I could barely contain myself. I was anxious with fear and
anticipation of the unknown.

When I finally boarded the plane, there was an announcement over the PA system that the trip would take thirteen hours and
fifty minutes. I thought to myself, “How interesting. It took fourteen weeks for the slave traders to get my ancestors to
America via the Middle Passage and will take only fourteen hours for me to return to Africa.”

A stroke of good fortune found me seated next to a very interesting man: Ivahn Van Niekerk, a native Afrikaner (a white South
African), a fine ostrich leather dealer, and a zoologist who worked to protect the antelope. He seemed to recognize me from
my movies and was quite well informed about the film industry.

During our conversation, he mentioned that his sister was steadfast in filmmaking in South Africa. He seemed like a nice enough
chap. He was very proud to be an Afrikaner. He swore that he would never live anywhere else. “My country is one of the most
beautiful countries in the world,” he said proudly.

I reflexively thought, “His country?”

I was so anxious I found it hard to sleep. “God, let me sleep!” I wanted to arrive feeling rested and refreshed so that I
could take in all Africa had to offer. I ended up reading instead. As I looked out the window, I could see the deep orange
hue of the morning sun beginning to rise over the horizon. I kept checking my watch, wondering what Jenisa was going to do
that day, her birthday. I sent her silent wishes, “Happy birthday, my dear Jenisa.”

I looked at my watch again, six more hours to go. There was a show on the airplane’s TV about Namibia’s wildlife. My mind
wandered to thoughts of my trip. Ivahn leaned over to say something, and the sound of his voice brought my thoughts back to
the present.

“That beetle they are talking about is called a dung beetle,” he said. He went on to explain that the insect ate cow excrement
and was very important ecologically to the region. After breaking chunks of it open it rolls the dung over and over and then
deposits its eggs. The hatchlings devour the larvae of flies and other parasites before they evolve. As I stared at the screen
it occurred to me that this dung beetle was in fact a “scarab,” an ancient symbol for the Egyptian pharaohs, once highly revered
as a god and a source of power and good fortune.

I checked my watch, two hours to go! The flight attendant served plates of assorted fruit, with tea and coffee, and the sleeping
passengers began to stir and awaken. The sun was now completely up and shining brightly through the windows, illuminating
the cabin and flooding it with a glow. Ivahn suggested I take a photo of Table Mountain as we passed over Cape Town. He also
allowed me to take his photograph before we disembarked. We shook hands. I reached for my carry-on bag, and when I looked
up Ivahn was gone.

My first impression of Cape Town was that it looked very much like many other cities I had traveled to. If I hadn’t known
for sure I was in Africa, I am not sure I could have guessed it. There were tall buildings and the city was busy with activity,
cars, and people rushing here and there.

I was delighted to find, despite the warnings of the old couple in Miami, that all my bags had made it to Africa. The producer
of the movie was the former wife of the great playwright David Hare, Ms. Margaret Matheson. She was a very tall and sturdy
Englishwoman with salt-and-pepper hair. Margaret was
waiting there at the airport reception area along with my driver, Thami. Thami was a very nice South African man who was quick
with a smile, and who gave me a fast education on where not to walk after dark. He seemed to be quite good at and secure in
what he did. He was very knowledgeable of the current events and political upheavals that plagued South Africa. As we drove
through the airport gates en route to the hotel, he pointed out a huge shantytown directly outside the entrance of the airport.
There were hundreds of shanties built alongside the road, row after row of rickety little shacks. The level of abject poverty
was shocking. The sight of it made me sad.

Thami talked of a new group of extremists called the People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD), a group of Arab Muslims
who resided in Cape Town. The group had taken it upon themselves to rid Cape Town of its drug problem using terrorist acts.
Their primary focus was the complete destruction of the drug dealers’ “fronts” and “camps.” Unfortunately, many innocent people
had died in the crossfire.

The PAGAD members were fully armed and at the time numbered five hundred strong.

According to Thami, they made it known that if the police ever tried to intervene in their activities they would declare war
in Cape Town. The irony was that while we rode, and I listened to this story, I thought about, and could understand, why the
Boers and Cecil Rhodes wanted to kill every Zulu in sight and take over this land for themselves. It was easily one of the
most beautiful, green, lush places I had ever seen. I was there only for a short time, but driving through the streets of
Cape Town gave me a nirvana-like feeling, it was almost mystical.

I arrived at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town, a wonderful little place with lush gardens, trickling water fountains, and a
patio area overlooking Table Mountain. To call this setting beautiful and serene is an understatement! I called Jenisa to
let
her know I had arrived safely. Fatigued from the long trip, I decided to lie down to catch a bit of a nap. As I began to drift
off to sleep, I was startled back to consciousness by a ringing phone. It was someone from the production office telling me
that Elaine Proctor, the writer, producer, and director of
Kin,
the film I was there to work on, would be delayed for thirty minutes.

Kin
is the story of a female conservationist who is an Afrikaner, and a corporate lawyer who is African American. While hunting
elephant poachers, they fall in love with each other, despite the disapproval of the local people.

A few minutes later, just as I started to drift off for a second time, the phone rang again. It was Elaine calling. Elaine
is a very beautiful, intelligent, and good-hearted woman. She said she was waiting for me in the lobby and suggested we have
dinner. I agreed. I cleaned up some and went down to the lobby to meet Elaine and Miranda Otto, an Australian actress, also
in the film, who seemed very nice and was quite pretty in an odd kind of way.

We dined at an East Indian restaurant called Bukhara. There I also met other film crew members Amy Vincent, the director of
photography, a self-described American vegetarian, and her camera operator, a splendid, seven-foot-tall African American man
named Brian Pitts. The love and respect they shared between them was a joy to watch; even if the image of the two of them
walking side by side gave a whole new meaning to the epithet “Mutt and Jeff.”

I was particularly excited to work with Amy. She did a great job shooting Kasi Lemmon’s
Eve’s Bayou.
Amy was an intense woman with a very warm smile. She wore a trademark straw cowboy hat and in temperatures of 120 degrees
would outwork every single man on the set. Her fearlessness, stamina, creativity, professionalism, and focus behind the camera
were remarkable to watch.

After dinner, we all were driven to a club called La Med near the beach, where it was drag queen night. The place was complete
with cross dressing, freaky dancing, and mate swapping. I wasn’t impressed. I thought that the gay clubs in New York did this
much better. When we arrived there the door attendant gave us a number to place on our chest. If a stranger “fancied” you
they could call out your number. “No way!” I thought to myself. I wondered, “What is wrong with these people? There is an
AIDS epidemic here!”

As we enjoyed the music and our drinks, my hosts told me the story of Gugu Dlamini, an AIDS activist who was beaten to death
by her neighbors after revealing her HIV-positive status on Zulu television in 1998. Gugu Dlamini tried desperately to educate
her people about their sexual behavior. (Many South African men refused to practice safe sex.) She was murdered for her efforts.
Township denial, cultural resistance, fears, and ignorance had allowed the AIDS virus to reach an incredible high point in
the country, amassing huge emotional and psychological turmoil that wasn’t being addressed within the community. Those discovered
to have contracted HIV were banished from their homes, ostracized, beaten, or even killed. I made a mental note to research
Dlamini’s name.

Back at the hotel, I couldn’t sleep. I was keyed up from the long trip and anticipation of taking still another leg of the
journey to Namibia in just a few hours. I repacked my bags for the flight to Epupa Falls the next morning. After another night
of little sleep, I was up before the sun, at 4:00 a.m.

It was quiet and heavenly still.

Nothing was moving but the wind, or should I say its sibling, the breeze. Sunrise was still a few minutes away. We loaded
up the truck that would take us to the airport and I realized that I’d left my Canon ELPH point-and-shoot in the rear seat
of our driver’s truck the night before. “Lucky,” the driver said when we discovered it still there and intact.

It was a short drive to Eros Airport. Craig Matthews and his assistant, Janet, arrived in their car, filled to capacity with
provisions for the camp we would set up in Epupa Falls. Craig was a thin, muscular Englishman, who had worked photojournaling
the Himba tribe for many years. He was fluent in the Himba language and served as liaison and consultant for our film. Since
the tribe had no formal knowledge of television or radio equipment, Craig and Janet planned to stay in Epupa Falls to inform
the tribe on the technical aspects of filmmaking.

We unloaded Craig’s car only to discover that most of the food he and Janet brought for the camp, his television camera, a
few pairs of Elaine’s shoes, and a few other assorted articles would have to be left behind. An unexpected traveler, the wife
of one of our pilots, had shown up. Since all of the seats had been assigned we had to make adjustments.

Amanda was our pilot for the first three-hour flight. She was very easygoing, confident, and reassuring to those in our group
who were nervous about flying. As our single-prop Centurion II cranked up and taxied, wobbling down the runway, I had the
sensation that I was outside of my body. My stomach tightened. I was nervous, I was excited, and I was in Africa! Elaine revealed
to me how afraid she was of small planes. I don’t think I was much of a comfort to her; most of my experience was with much
bigger planes, the United States Air Force T-38 and the F-4 Phantom. My anxiety was more about not knowing exactly what to
feel.

I took some great photographs of Cecil, the pilot of the other plane, carrying Amy and Janet, as he flew alongside the plane
that carried Craig, Elaine, and me. I also got my first aerial view of the Himba dwellings. From the plane the villages or
omganda
(homesteads) looked like ant beds. The dung-and-tree-branch huts or
ondjuwo
(houses) were inside a circled fence made from the branches of the mopane tree, a necessary staple and building resource
for the Himba people in Kaokoland.