Jacob Ubuntu taught them African Studies on a Wednesday. It was a passion and a mission for him. His international pupils had rapidly changing lives. They jumped like a bolt of electricity from one country to the next, every two years. He wanted to soak them in his own deep and unfolding culture.
Today’s lesson was about the paintings and engravings at Twyfelfontein.
The lesson was held in one of the more modern classrooms, well-equipped for presentations. Ubuntu’s eyes were wide and glistening, and they carried within them the bright colours of his reflected PowerPoint slides. Drawings of rhinoceroses, giraffes, ostriches and elephants patrolled across his forehead like silent, ghostly herds.
‘We used to think these engravings were made by our ancestors to teach their children how to hunt. Now we think these drawings had a deeper meaning.’
Another slide came up. It was of a lion but no ordinary lion. It had human feet and toes and an unusually long tail which suddenly and impossibly defied gravity by shooting up at right angles and ended in something like a paw. It was child-like in the way it was drawn, but somehow adult in its meaning.
‘This is the famous Lion Man,’ Ubuntu continued. ‘This figure shows the transformation of humans into animals.’
An arm shot up with a question.
‘Yes?’ said Ubuntu, faintly annoyed that the spell of his excited narrative had been broken.
‘Excuse me sir, but how is that possible? Humans can’t transform into animals,’ a voice asked from the back of the class.
‘How long have you observed people?’ Ubuntu asked.
‘I can’t honestly say, sir,’ the voice in the darkened audience answered in a shy tremble. ‘Perhaps, I haven’t.’
‘May I suggest that you start observing your fellow humans more carefully. And that you read a book called “Lord of the Flies.” Then you will discover how easily humans can become animals,’ Ubuntu replied. The room noticeably chilled.
Hannah’s arm went up.
‘What is at the end of the lion’s tail sir?’
Freddie couldn’t resist answering out loud ‘Is it an improbable ending sir?’
The class laughed in appreciation.
‘Thank you for your witty interjection, Mr Wilde,’ Ubuntu commented with a withering sarcasm.
‘Sorry to interrupt Headmaster,’ Freddie replied.
‘Interruptions are always welcome when they add something,’ Jacob Ubuntu remarked, leaving it unsaid as to whether Freddie’s remark could be classified as such. ‘I think that Miss Chiang meant T-A-I-L, not T-A-L-E.’
He had already clocked Hannah as a star pupil, an observation confirmed, yet again, by her question. He also knew that if Hannah’s parents were pleased with her schooling, word-of-mouth would work its sweet magic amongst the ever-more-important Chinese community.
‘The answer to that excellent question is what is called a “Pugmark”: in other words, an animal footprint.’
‘Why was a footprint important enough to paint sir?’ Freddie asked.
‘Good question. Does anyone have the answer?’
‘That’s how they managed to kill and eat. They had to track animal footprints to survive.’ Joe’s answer was complete and impressive. He wasn’t about to reveal that he knew this because of many Sunday afternoons learning about it from his father. Animal tracking was one of Ben Kaplan’s keenest interests.
Ubuntu acknowledged the impressive nature of Joe’s response and then continued.
‘But there aren’t just animals engraved on these rocks. There are also strange, geometrical patterns scattered everywhere.’
Another slide came up to illustrate the point. Joe’s attention ratcheted several notches higher. His brain always engaged with geometric shapes, silently but rapidly, sifting their repeatable patterns.
‘No one really knows what these patterns are,’ said Ubuntu, ‘but it is thought they may be maps to water sources.’
‘Sir, could they be linked in any way to the Fairy Circles?’ Joe interjected, forgetting in his excitement to put his hand up.
Ubuntu walked very slowly and solemnly towards Joe, in front of the screen onto which his slides had been projected. As he did so, his face was smeared and distorted by images of the strange geometric shapes from Twyfelfontein. It was as if he had contracted some rare skin disease. Only his stern look prevented another wave of laughter at his sudden ‘rash’.
Ubuntu stood tall over the seated Joe.
‘Why are you so interested in the Fairy Circles?’ the Headmaster asked gravely.
‘I am interested in the patterns sir… whether they are mathematical,’ Joe continued in order to fill the silence, to make it less awkward. ‘I saw them as we flew into from South Africa.’
‘What did you see that so fascinated you?’ Ubuntu enquired.
‘I saw thousands of circles, sir. It was like … I don’t know, like acne on a giant face…’ Joe described.
Half of those present laughed and the other half felt uncomfortable in recognition of their own skin.
‘I thought I started to see patterns in them as we flew over,’ Joe explained and then in a pleading tone added ‘What are they, sir? I heard the story at the Boma, but what do we really know?’
Ubuntu slowly returned to the front of the class, in order to respond with suitable authority. He pulled himself up to his full height.
‘Fairy Circles are one of the greatest, unsolved mysteries of Nature. The circles are circular, bare patches, but with a ring of tall grasses around their edge.’
Ubuntu tapped excitedly at the keys of the classroom computer from which he was projecting. He exited his PowerPoint presentation, brought up Google and searched firstly for a map of Southern Africa, which he rapidly found and then enlarged.
‘The circles, tens of thousands of them, appear in a band, or corridor if you like, that stretches fifteen hundred miles.’
He used his steel, extendable pointer as a kind of wand to indicate on the projected map.
‘All the way from southern Angola up here, through Namibia and down here to the Orange River in the North-western Cape of South Africa. This band is about a hundred miles inland. Most of it is very barren. We are not far from them here, actually.’
He then searched the term ‘Fairy Circles’ under Google Images and brought up some of the most dramatic. There were sharp intakes of breath at the sheer scale of the circles. They had been photographed from hot air balloons and small planes, their silhouettes falling sharp and angular across the intricate patterns.
‘What causes the Fairy Circles, sir?’ another voice piped up from the back.
This question seemed to momentarily paralyse the Headmaster. He visibly slumped and, as he turned to face the questioner, his eyes betrayed anxiety, possibly even fear.
‘The truth is we don’t entirely know what causes them,’ Ubuntu admitted.
Freddie’s hand went up next.
‘What do people living near the circles think caused them, sir? We heard the story of the Golden Leopard but what else do Namibians think?’
Ubuntu cleared his throat before answering. He also sat for the first time, on a high stool stationed at the front of the class. He was happy to stand when talking about Science. Instinctively, he always sat when talking about Religion or Culture.
‘Well, a tribe called the Himba believe their original ancestor, Mukuru, created the circles. Some believe that they are formed from the giant teardrops of the gods…or their footprints.’
Ubuntu’s shadow was cast, vast and dark, upon the back-wall of the class by the light of the projector, as if he too was one of the gods walking upon the Earth, raised up high by his stool.
‘Other tribes believe that the fire from the nostrils of underground dragons, or their poisonous breath, caused them. Many of them think the circles have magical properties.’
‘What do you think, sir?’ Hannah asked.
After a long pause, Ubuntu simply replied ‘I don’t know what to believe. And in that doubt, I am far from alone. They remain a mystery.’
He decided with that wistful phrase to end his lesson.
‘Thank you, boys and girls. Next week, we will discuss the early tribes.’
As they filed out, the hubbub of pupils was almost deafening.
It was the last lesson of the day and Joe, Hannah and Freddie escaped into the fading heat and relative peace of the garden.
Hannah, spun round to face them both, walking backwards as she spoke to them. ‘There’s something extraordinary about the Fairy Circles, something other-worldly. I…’
Hannah’s declamation was stopped mid-flow by a sudden collision. She tripped and fell backwards over a large pair of feet in mud-spattered boots.
‘I am sorry, Miss,’ the feet said.
It was Basarwa, the gardener. He extended both his hands to grasp hers and helped her up. She was mildly grazed but more embarrassed than hurt. Her mother’s repeated advice not to walk backwards whilst engrossed in conversation came back to haunt her.
‘No, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have been walking backwards,’ Hannah reassured him, sorry for his anxiety and pained expression.
‘Are you OK?’ Basarwa asked. ‘No bruises or cuts? I have First Aid in my shed if you need it.’
She noticed that his thin, muscular arms were trembling.
‘No, honestly, I’m fine,’ she reassured as Joe chivalrously checked her legs for any sign of cuts or bruising.
Freddie handed Basarwa back his floppy hat which had fallen to the ground after the collision.
‘Excuse me asking, Miss, but did I hear you talking about the Fairy Circles just now?’ Basarwa asked.
‘Yes, you did. Why?’ Hannah asked.
‘If you don’t mind me saying, you need to be careful. Very careful. Those circles are sacred. Sacred to the San…my people.’
Hannah felt very flummoxed, very Western and very naive, as she gazed into his knowing eyes.
Basarwa continued, gripping her arms more tightly than she would have liked.
‘You see…every circle is the grave of a bushman: a bushman killed by the white invaders. They have come, for hundreds of years, preaching their ways, killing us for being different. But we have lasted longer than anyone on Earth, until guns anyway. God has cried a giant tear for each one of us to mark where we fell. If you tamper with those circles, you tamper with the dead.’
That night, Basarwa’s face haunted all of them. In the morning they woke exhausted but relieved to hear the birds.