After months of indecision, I was finally convinced by two of my housemates to make the trip with them to Afrika Burn, the festival in the Karoo semi desert inspired by Burning Man in the United States. I hurried to the shops to buy four pockets of oranges, since we were on our way to a cashless society, a gift economy in which everyone contributes and everyone benefits, I decided that oranges and goji berries would comprise my contribution. I had been put off by the high entrance fee and the vast amount of fuel needed to cover the distance from Cape Town to Tankwa Karoo, but once I had reconciled myself to paying for these, I was happy and eager to experience life in a cashless society, if even only for a few days.
Our first glimpse of this grand social experiment, in its second South African incarnation, was from a few kilometres away as we made it over the top of a ridge. It looked like a sci-fi moon base from far away. A great white dome and a red tower presided over smaller structures, which revealed themselves as art installations, tents and vehicles as we got closer. A light aircraft circled overhead and came in to land at the adjacent airstrip just after we arrived at the gate. Here I met Monique, someone who I knew from my Anthropology class at university, and was surprised to find out that the event (or
invent, as the organisers would prefer to call it) was her brainchild. She had abandoned her Masters to focus on last year’s project. “What else would you do with an Anthropology degree?” she asked, half smiling.
We entered and made our way round the Binnekring (inner circle) street to the large red tower, which turned out to be a giant post box, about three stories high. This was Burning Mail, the theme camp we were involved with. Anyone could write a postcard at Burning Mail and have it sent for free to anywhere in the world, including within the festival. I did a stint there, answering the phone, which was linked by a direct line to a London telephone booth standing by itself in the desert within the Binnekrig. Most of the callers asked for jokes and I ended up having to come up with my own because the joke references we had been provided with for the purpose were generally pretty bad and dirty.
I set off to explore the other theme camps and found camp Vuvuzela, just after dark. Huge lights made out of hundreds of cooldrink bottles illuminated the windswept dancefloor as revellers grooved to Eastern European beats spun by the famous Toby Two Shoes. The area was intermittently warmed and lit by sudden jets of fire emanating from five meter high vuvuzelas (loud trumpets associated with South African football).
In the distance, the massive white dome, which I learned was called The Wish, eerily shone in the soft coloured lights that faded on and off around it. The Wish was constructed out of wooden circles within circles, a magnificent reinterpretation of the classic Buckminster Fuller spheroid buildings. Over the course of the weekend, it was a trance party venue, a jungle gym, a wedding chapel and a fornicatorium. As far as I know, it was the only flammable work of art that was not burned.
The most spectacular burn was that of San Clan, a towering multi-headed and multi-legged statue representing the interdependence of humanity and the spirit of uBuntu. Most of the population of Tankwa town, the name of the temporary town that was itself the festival, turned out to see it. A mobile sound rig arrived to lend some beats and party atmosphere, and the art cars shuttled people from various other places on the Binnekring. I got a ride on the back trailer of an interlink towed by a tractor. There were about eighty litres of Sangria on board, and although it was free and well advertised, the benefactors were having a hard time giving it all away. About an hour before the San Clan was lit, a dreadlocked team was wandering around The Wish with a tray of psychedelic hash brownies, and the spectacle of the San Clan going up proved to be the event that sent many partaking participants over the edge.
One popular theme tent was the Desert Rose, a free cocktail bar. It had a kind of Mexican Dia de los Muertos theme, playing cowboy tunes to the dusty rabble rousers on the covered dance ground. Skulls, cacti, saloon doors and strings of chilli lights accentuated the theme. Between the Rose and Burning Mail was a green army tent amidst a laager of RVs called M*A*S*H*E*D. These guys from the UK had an old flatbed truck done up like a field ambulance and it made excursions from time to time with their band, including a full drum kit, mics, amps etc, playing beer fuelled punk rock to whoever they drove past. We received our first gift of the event from them; a large pot of rice and a large pot of mince, which a man in a surgeon’s uniform donated because they had overestimated how hungry they were. Further round the Binnekring was the information tent, which had photos from the previous year as well as an array of coloured pens which could be used to write or draw in the spaces between the photos. On the other side of the Binnekring was Camp Partycipation which consisted of a chill area with free food and a large sound rig playing psytrance, accompanied by musicians or the similarly inspired on a collection of musical instruments on the periphery of their dance ground. One of the members of Partycipation lent me an article on how DNA could be altered with special laser technology. I felt that the information itself was a valuable gift. I left him a pile of goji berries.
Arbi and Patel’s corner store was nearby, offering the kinds of goodies one would expect to find at a corner store, but all for free. Customers were encouraged to leave gifts on the table to maintain the quantity of the inventory, while having the quality in constant flux. Next door to Arbi and Patel’s was a chai and roti shop, a welcome stop for the desert-weary wanderer. I noticed that near the end of the party everyone seemed to have oranges, and fewer and fewer people were accepting them from me. This was not really a problem (Mark made orange juice when we got home) because the nature of a gift economy is that the gifts are unconditional, as opposed to a barter economy, which is still an economy of exchange. I was able to keep myself well fed and entertained by virtue of other peoples’ philanthropy. Some had special touches to contribute, like Polaroid photos and little crystals.
I had experienced a society of abundance, and I kept in mind that it was only possible because the participants were predominantly from well endowed sectors of the economy; in other words, you have to be rich to live in a cashless society, as things stand, and you can only do so for a few days a year. But the amazing thing is that despite this unfortunate exclusivity, those of us who were able to, found a place out of time. Along with the cash went many other cultural imputations, leaving behind a more joyously giving, gracefully receiving and enthusiastically participating breed of human, living for, creating and being in the moment.
