Another picture from one of my visits from Mma Rabotapi's traditional healer school (see South Africa numbers 2 and 14.) On the right are the dancers whirling in spiritual ecstasy and on the left are the teenage drummers giving it all they've got. This was the last picture that I drew after being up all night sketching, drumming, singing, and clapping. I was filthy from sitting on the ground and so monumentally tired that I couldn't sleep. After washing up and changing my clothes, I went in to Mma Rabotapi's living room to hang out with her her son and his friends. Though Mma R is a powerful traditional healer with experience in Tswana mysticism, her son only has eyes for the slightly less arcane practice of computer programming. When I sat down to chat with the guys, they were playing games on their cell phones and watching a DVD. The movie was "Mr. Bones"-a South African made Hollywood-style comedy (in it a fat guy flies head first into a rhino's anus-that kind of movie.) The plot centers around a white baby who is taken in by a traditional society, and grows up to become a healer. I can't tell you how strange it was to watch this corny movie about "witch doctors" while the last sounds of a real healer ceremony boomed and crashed outside. Nobody seemed to find this situation even slightly absurd. So, covered with a thick blanket of irony, I laughed right along with everybody else, curled up on the couch, and went to sleep.
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