'YOU SHALL NOT PASS.'

Well goodness, there’s just so much to say!

Most awesomely, they celebrate a National Women’s Day here and they do it up just right (we get off school and everything). It was this past Monday, August 9^th. In honor of the ladies, this surf shop at a nearby beach town called Muizenberg offered women a free surf lesson with board and wet suit. So I danced with some waves! It was so totally awesome. I was pretty anxious in the beginning because the last time I went into the ocean (only a month and a half ago in California) it really hurt my ear drums. Plus, it is still winter here so it was rather cold and the ocean was rough. AND it started to rain before we went in. The whole thing looked foreboding and ominous, to me. But we were a nicely sized group of about 12 and there were three enthusiastic instructors and they took us through the whole drill while we were on the shore and then sent us out into the waves and it was really not very difficult at all. I caught the first wave I tried.

They were like, “Stand up, stand up!” and I didn’t even think I was riding it, but then I stood up and lo and behold, there I went. Really great feeling.

So basically I accomplished my number one goal for Cape Town. Ride a wave.

The rest of that day Sorcha, Cosmo, Erika and I spent wandering around Muizenberg. There is a lot more to that town than I first thought. Lots of little shops and antique stores and cafes. And a lot of surf stuff. We went to a weird little flea market by the beach. The best place was this spot called ‘The Melting Pot’ which is nice café/bar/fire pit/place for music where the locals gather and hang out. There weren’t too many people, maybe a dozen or so as the night went on, so we were able to become friends with them all.

Then Abe cooked the ladies dinner. Woo hoo Women’s Day!

So now I’m going to go all the way back to July 30^th and just mention a few events because really, I’ve done quite a lot.

July 30^th was a Friday and my Environmental class got to go on a field trip to this area called Hout Bay/Imizamo Yethu. This place is quite unique in that it is one of the absolute most impoverished areas in Cape Town right next to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods around. We got to go on a tour of the place, noting things like whether they had electricity or running water and what the air smelled like, whether there was any greenery etc.

It’s a pretty insane place. The poor area (Imizamo Yethu) is basically just a hillside of shacks. I think like 200,000 families or something like that. Each shack is just a bed and maybe a TV and a refrigerator and a stove. Tiny. And a whole family lives in each one. But you know, honestly, they are so wonderful. Just awesome and resilient people. There’s no way I feel pity for any of them, only respect. They’re living like this because they and their families before them were forcefully kicked off their land and their choice was basically put up a shack or don’t. It was interesting touring their area, taking a field trip through their homes. Everyone was very friendly and spirited though, as you might expect from people who spend their lives in a closely knit community where all you have is each other. One really sad thing was that in June there was a fire which destroyed tons of houses. They’re all connected, so if one catches fire, all of them are pretty much goners. Plus, there isn’t a decent running water supply so it must have been a nightmare to put out. They share one toilet for 50 families. What the heck!

The suburban area was really regular and I preferred the shacks. It’s in a gorgeous area of the Cape which is why the suburbanites live there. It’s just weird that included in their fantastic view is a big lump of poverty.

That night we went to a rugby game! It was really fun. Lots of hollering and some group of people got a pretty good wave going around the stadium. It was basically like being at a football game only with nonstop action.

Saturday we went to the waterfront and saw Inception – awesome movie. My dreams have been pretty vivid since then, I must say. I’ve been doing a really good job writing my dreams down for months. I had a crazy one this past week – it was about Hitler’s suicide. INTENSE.

Then Saturday night Will, Jamie and I went out with my original couch surfing friend Shane to this place called the Kimberley Hotel which was one of the first bars in Cape Town. That was super awesome because Shane is such a great guy and the four of us had lots of really good conversation. He is a good reflection of Cape Town for us Americans. The previous night we had gotten into many discussions in the courtyard that got kind of heated. Someone was saying that America was exploiting Mexico and Ireland for celebrating Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick’s Day. Kind of a ridiculous claim, but you have to face those kinds of points of view sometimes.

Sunday not much happened, although I found a place with pretty phenomenal cheeses.

We had a potluck the following week for which I made peanut sauce which was a big hit. Hurray.

Tuesday, 3 Aug I went to my second Inkanyezi meeting. So I went into this township called Philipe and met with these year 11 students and did a little workshop with them. I like them so much! I can’t wait to keep going back! I almost want to do it twice a week, but as it is I am booked solid almost every day of the week and I cherish having free time because I have a lot of exploring to do.

Tuesday night we saw a really iiinteresting documentary called ‘Mugabe and the White African.’ If you don’t know what is happening in Zimbabwe, basically the dictator president (Mugabe) kicked all the white people off their land and made them leave the country. So the documentary is about this one white family that fought for their farm and eventually took it to international court and the court ruled they could keep their farm, but they got the crap beaten out of them and had to leave anyway. It was quite intense, but I couldn’t help leaving with the feeling that it’s so incredibly much less horrendous than anything that happened to the Africans in the past few centuries. I mean I know you don’t really compare tragedies like that, but it’s just that no one was around to make a documentary about the slaves who were lain down in shelved compartments and shipped off around the globe to have terrible lives until they died. So basically it just made me remember those people, which is a good thing, I guess. It’s just intense that the Zimbabwe thing is current. How interesting that this is how history is playing its course.

Last Friday Sam and Will and I hung out in Kalk Bay all evening. That was great!

I’ll take a moment to describe where I live in relation to other things. So there is the mountain, Table Mountain, and it is huge. My university is on one side and I live directly below it. A ways north is Cape Town and I can take the train there or a taxi or the school sponsored bus (the Jammie) or a mini bus (a big van that drives by and honks and hollers and is generally a pain to be around unless you need it). To the south is how you get to the beach and you take the train there and it’s about 20 minutes to the first beach stop (Muizenberg) and then every stop after that is beach for awhile, I believe.

So Kalk Bay comes after Muizenberg. It was an old fishing town and we learned from a woman that we met that it was one of few areas less affected by apartheid because the people living there weren’t relocated. Sam and Will and I went down there. There are two piers sticking out into the harbor perpendicular to one another and we went on those and watched the waves for a long time. I’ve never really seen waves like this or noticed waves in this way and I don’t really know how to explain it, but the Indian ocean seems to have many more small waves with a greater frequency and they build up to many large waves that are rather far apart. It was pretty phenomenal looking. Then the sun set. Experiencing the weather on the peninsula is a crazy experience because you can see exactly what is happening. As soon as the sun sets, the wind gusts and the clouds roll in over the mountain without missing a beat. When the wind blows from the northwest it is cold and rough, from the southeast warm and calmer.

We walked down the road in the cold grey wind for awhile. There were a lot of weird spots where you could take stairs down from the road and go through a tunnel and be on the rocky shore. And by some of the shores were big, white, concrete pools for some reason. I like the ocean when it’s windy and cold.

Then we went to this bar (it’s two connected bars and a restaurant) right on the shore. They built a huge (maybe 50 x 75 feet) concrete pool on the side by the ocean and there are big windows inside and the pool is filled with ocean water because the ocean crashes against the side of it and spills over. So you sit inside and watch the ocean crash against the restaurant, basically. It’s really awesome looking – it looks like the fountains outside the Bellagio, only natural so it’s way cooler.

We went there and met this older woman who looked like a good witch named Ingrid. Long face, pointy nose – but extremely intelligent and fascinating and we learned about all sorts of things. Things from what fruits and vegetables are in season to apartheid and many of the stories of her life. She put apartheid into a light I had never before considered – the Berlin wall. She said she was here and experiencing all the crap going on and then went to visit her family in Germany and her family had been accidentally split up the night the wall was erected, so they were stuck on either side. So she went to experience the crap going on there, too. South Africa and Germany both have such an interesting political history, but I had never really thought about them side-by-side. I’m glad we met her. She owns an antique shop down there, so we’ll have to go back sometime.

She recommended a place called the Lucky Fish by the harbor and we went there and had a phenomenally delicious sea food platter. So fresh. It was weird eating the fish because while there was still daylight when we walked down the harbor the fishermen were there with all their dozens and dozens of fish hanging on lines and laid out on the ground. Fresh fish is pretty tasty though, I feel like I have to eat it before the fish population dies out so they don’t die in vain.

Then we went to the other bar connected to the first bar we went to (the upper part was the more adult area, and the part we went to after eating the fish was more for young people) which was a good hang out place. It was really big and you could sit by the windows and watch the surf and there were lots of picnic tables and then in the middle on a lower level was the bar and dance floor. We hung out there for awhile and then took a taxi home (you can’t take trains at night.)

Saturday I woke up early and went to this local public market called the Old Biscuit Mill Market in an area called Woodstock. We had quite a time getting there, but once we did, ohhh man! So many things! There’s one big huge area with hundreds of vendors selling scrumptious food all giving out free samples. I can’t stop going on about how crazy good the food is here. I am getting to the point where I have to actively control my eating habits or I will just eat all the time.

We had to leave early to facilitate the fumigation of our apartments because some people brought home bed bugs from our township home stay.

But after that we walked to this cool area called Observatory, or Obz, for short. It’s like the poor hip kids neighborhood with cool cafes and bars and shops. We wandered around all the streets and eventually went to this place called Obz Café. This was the beginning of a night of proper synchronicities and things working out well. I was walking along and there were three South African kids on the corner and they said hi and I said hi and they said where you going, and I said Obz Café and they said it was good and to ask for Marcel to wait on us because he was one of the girls’ brothers. So we went in and sat down and then I asked if one kid was Marcel (because he was the only white guy I saw and she had been white) but he wasn’t, he was Matthew, then we met our waiter named Siya, and then finally saw Marcel. So we ate food and this kid I had previously met at Stones named Landry met us there and was very nice and polite – it’s just a shame because he speaks French and very little English! It’s kind of hard to get to know a fellow that way. But he’s a really cute black guy from Congo.

Then we left and went home and hung out for awhile. That night I really wanted to go to the Rhino Room (the psytrance place on Long St. downtown) but it took everyone ages to get ready so I had to wait around for awhile – which actually ended up being a good thing because when I arrived there were only three people on the dance floor anyhow. So I went there and all my friends went to go do the bar hop thing on Long Street. The djs were awesome! This one guy named Gandalf played my favorite set and the last people called Plus Minus were really good too. I met a few cool people. The place has an awesome vibe and everyone in it looks cool and positive. On the one side there is the dj booth and the dance floor and lots of colored lights and a big fluorescent rhino head sticking out of the wall, and in the middle is the bar and on the other side there are couches and chairs and a pool table.

At one point I walked outside and there were Siya and Matthew from earlier! This was very good because I wanted to stay and dance for a long time and I knew my friends wanted to go home. So I went and said hi to the rest of the group and they left and Sorcha and my roommate Amy stayed and hung out with Siya and Matthew various places and I spent the rest of my night going in and out of the Rhino Room to meet up with them and then go back and dance. At around 4 they gave us a ride home and I was very satisfied to be able to stay until the end of all the sets. This weekend there are two good trance parties and I guess I’ll just have to go to both of them because one is a big party up the coast and I’m going to have to miss the first outdoor party, so this will be my consolation for that. And that other one, the one tomorrow, has these guys called Pitch Hikers playing and I’ve been listening to them for years now, so I can’t miss their set either. But really, this is a great thing.

So then Sunday was pretty nice. Amy and I went into the Langa township to go have lunch at her home stay family’s house. They made us nice food. It was funny standing there at the gas station when we arrived because it was like, who are these white girls in the middle of our township? Haha. It was interesting eating with them because there are three generations living in the house. The youngest generation just wanted to sit and eat and watch TV and the older folks wanted us to sit at the table and talk. Naturally. I mean I don’t like TV so I wanted to sit and talk too, which is what we did, but it’s just funny to see that it happens everywhere.

Then we left and that night we went back to Observatory to watch some stand up comedy at the Obz Theatre. SO FUNNY. There was this tall, skinny, wacky old British guy who just heckled the audience and got every single person just cracking up a storm. It was great. He was the guy announcing every one of the other 6 acts. The other acts had some good jokes, but the British guy (Martin Davis) was the best. It was a nice venue, very personal and just how I would imagine a proper comedy club to be.

So now we are to this week and I already talked about Monday, Women’s Day.

Tuesday, I gave blood. Never thought I’d give blood in Africa, hey?

Oh, that’s another thing. You know in Hawai’i they end sentences with ‘yea?’ and in Canada they say ‘eh?’ etc? Well in South Africa it’s ‘hey.’ I’ve picked up on it pretty well and I like it.

So I gave blood… and then played soccer. Ha. There is a little park by our flats and we got a good little game going, pretty nice. Then we all made food together and ate it.

Tuesday night Lilya brought me to a small kickback party at a friend’s that she met (Renier). They were one black and three white South Africans who went to school in Botswana and now are back. One of them was a Serbian dude, originally. It was pretty funny, I definitely enjoy hanging out with people who live here (as opposed to Americans) most. Conversation just goes all over the place and there are some American things that it’s fun to explain to Africans.

Wednesday entailed probably one of the most excellent things I’ve done here so far – I saw Sir Ian McKellen in a production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot downtown! Ahhh it was outstanding. If you don’t know the play, it’s basically just two old ratty men having absurd conversations the whole time with a few other characters that wander across the stage a couple times. They are waiting. For Godot. Ian McKellen was Gogo and he was so perfect, I swear he and his character are one and the same. We got to see him do all sorts of goofy things! Spit, chew a carrot and a parsnip, drop his pants, dance like an old vaudeville guy, stick his tongue out, fall over, get his butt smacked, stick his butt in another guy’s face, kick somebody in the balls and just be a generally wacky old man. Soooo funny. Will and Abe and I were quoting his voice forever before and after, pretending like he was the one of the minibus guys who just shout “Cape Town! Wynberg!” Anything is funny in an Ian McKellen voice. Even when he sighed and mumbled and breathed heavily it was still so apparently Ian McKellen. Such a glorious thing to experience.

Then we walked to the Jammie stop and eventually got home and I went to sleep and now it is Thursday!

Today my environmental class went to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden. It’s quite a spectacular place because this region is big on fynbos which is a type of floral beauty – 80% of the species that exist here only exist here. The Cape area is in and of itself an entire floral kingdom!

Tonight we are going to check out a reggae place in Obz called Trenchtown.

Tomorrow I am hoping to get a cheap bicycle.

Speaking of cheap, I didn’t realize how little money people made here. There are 7 rand to the dollar and yet in the news I heard that teachers are lobbying for paychecks of 11,000 rand a year. What?!?! That’s nothing, that’s like $1,500! Insanity. I can’t imagine a South African ever venturing over to the states, their money would be practically worthless. I’m fortunate for it to be this way. All my meals work out to be like $3 a piece or less. I’m trying not to think in terms of dollars and to think in terms of rand, but at the end of the day, what costs nothing to me is a fortune to everyone else.

Well, I guess that’s about all. Classes are good, I’m learning a lot about South Africa in the early 20^th century in two classes and a lot of theories about the world in my other class – ecofeminism, ecotheology and the like.

The world is in a crazy time! I can’t believe Greenland broke in half the other day. If things aren’t figured out soon, Cape Town will be underwater in the near future so I’ve got to live it up while it lasts.

Cheers!