Sunday- Women's Day in Nyanga

Happy belated Women’s Day! My favorite of all South African holidays, the celebration of the role of women in SAfrican heritage gives way to awesome events all over the city. Brigid and I went with April’s dance class to see a Women’s Day arts performance in Nyanga, a Cape Town township. First we got a chance to look around at the art people had done, and then the performance began with older, traditional dancers. Here is a photo to see there face paint, and I’m going to try for a video as well.

After, there was a drama act that included a neat monologue about pride in South African womanhood as a gift from the mothers that fought apartheid. Then, a bunch of 8-9 year old girls did a RIDICULOUSLY salacious dance to ‘live your life.’ Finally, my favorite act was a group of young girls doing traditional dancing, which was actually quite similar to belly dancing but much grander motions.

Afterwards, we went to Mzoli’s meat, a township braai that serves huge piles of meat with sausage on top. It’s weirdly like a day club. Sunday at 3pm, everyone was drinking a lot and dancing in a packed space to a DJ. Very confusing. Sufficed to say, Brigid and I mostly chilled and played a bit with a baby.

Here we are in Nyanga posing as empowered women!