Mandela's cell.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Robben Island.
This week we bit the bullet and did some 'mandatory' touristy things in Cape Town, like taking a ferry out to Robben Island. While I've prided myself in 26 years of seasick-free living, this boat ride nearly ended that. It was like a freak water park ride gone horribly awry for almost an hour. The island itself is surprisingly beautiful (and not just because it's blessed solid ground) -- sun and swaying palm trees and white sand with crushed seashells everywhere. In the 1800's it was used for a leper colony. Once it was turned into a prison, there were 2 sides: a medium-security side for thieves, rapists, and murderers, and a maximum security side for political prisoners. The rapists and murderers served no hard labour, while political prisoners worked in the limestone mines, often transporting rocks from one side of the island to the other for no apparent reason.
Mandela's cell.
Mandela's cell.
Beautiful.
Complex political and racial issues aside, Cape Town is an absolutely stunning city. From almost anywhere, you can look up and see Table Mountain looming over you, or the Atlantic/Indian oceans churning below you. Things are lush and green, the sun is always shining, when it rains it's only for 5 minutes, and there's an almost-constant breeze coming in from the sea. Rough, but we manage.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Babies Where They Shouldn't Be.
Last week Ina read a story in the paper about a baby found in a rubbish bin in a nearby suburb. It was in a black plastic bag with the top tied, but somehow managed to survive and was taken to the hospital by the person who found her.
On Thursday, Ina and I went to a children's home we'd toured briefly but wanted to spend more time in. Getting there involved a 30-minute walk to the main road and hopping in a "taxi" (read: mini-van that seats 12 but is usually carrying about 27 by the time you get in) to Wynberg. I'm fairly sure the driver was stoned, and a bass-infused rendition of It's Ya Birfday was on repeat. The fare collector proceeded to yell "Wyna-Wyna-Wyna-WYNBERG!!!!!!!!!!!" out the window every 2.5 seconds for the next 10 miles, in an unsucessful effort to score more passengers (as if the van could hold anymore). Once in Wynberg, we caught another taxi to the suburb of Ottery. That fare collector asked Ina quite bluntly to marry him (they always go for the short girls.. *sigh), to which Ina replied "I can't, I'm going to Ottery", which everyone in the taxi thought was hilarious. We arrived at the kid's home in time to get everyone up from naps and help with the bath and pajama routine.
At some point in the afternoon, Ina was handed a little girl who'd just been discharged from the hospital. She was calm but obviously still recovering from malnutrition and some sort of skin condition. The white hospital name band around her ankle read "Unknown Female." After asking the House Mum about her, we discovered this was the rubbish bin baby from the paper last week. The most bizarre thing about it was that she was at least 8 months old. Sad as it may be, desperate mothers dump fetuses and newborns in the trash all over the world on a regular basis, but as the House Mum wanted to know, who gives birth to a gorgeous baby girl, cares for, bonds with, feeds, and nurtures her for 8 months before deciding to put her in the trash??? It's completely baffling.
We had such a good time with all the children. As different as South Africa may be from Kenya, I was happy to find the kids still call you "Aunty" here.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Things We've Been Doing.
Eating copious amounts of fruit.
Watching local films at the Cape Town Film Festival.
Walking. Walking, walking, walking.
Eating more fish than I ever thought humanly possible.
Catching local bands playing at the park for the annual Cape Town Festival.
Getting lost.
Reading Africa books in the backyard sunshine.
Going on morning runs through the nearby cricket (sport, not insect) fields.
Eating South African, Kurdish, Carribean, and Cuban food downtown.
Mastering the decent but reliably unreliable bus and train systems.
Wandering the city markets endless stalls of jewelry, masks, sandals, and absurd amounts of 2010 World Cup Memorabilia.
Turning down numerous offers for ganja on the street corners.
Wandering the halls of museums, hospitals, the University of Cape Town, and the local library.
Meeting people from Nigeria, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and occasionally, South Africa.
Obviously living the rough life.
Weirdest scene of the weekend: a beer ad being filmed downtown, involving "snow" (white sand) and a snowboarder.
Last weekend we checked out the nightlife at a place in the city called Tiger Tiger (just like Stardust Lounge, the name says it all) where drinks were cheap and the music was all American pop. A particularly bizarre moment was being on the dance floor when Michael Jackson's "Doesn't Matter If You're Black Or White" came on. Everyone in the club (most of them white 20-somethings) started singing along emphatically, and I looked around and realized the only blacks in the place were 3 very overworked bartenders, and a cleaning lady who was constantly sweeping up broken glass off the dance floor from yet another wasted lacrosse-playing, Lacoste-wearing, stuck up white boy knocking beer bottles over. It appears in some places, it does still matter if you're black or white.
Also over the weekend, we finally got into the slums! Went to a church in Khayelitsha, full of locals and gorgeous chocolate babies running everywhere. The service was 3 hours long (that's how you know you're in Africa), but a good solid hour of it was nothing but music and dancing and hollering and clapping. And it was so, so good.
Watching local films at the Cape Town Film Festival.
Walking. Walking, walking, walking.
Eating more fish than I ever thought humanly possible.
Catching local bands playing at the park for the annual Cape Town Festival.
Getting lost.
Reading Africa books in the backyard sunshine.
Going on morning runs through the nearby cricket (sport, not insect) fields.
Eating South African, Kurdish, Carribean, and Cuban food downtown.
Mastering the decent but reliably unreliable bus and train systems.
Wandering the city markets endless stalls of jewelry, masks, sandals, and absurd amounts of 2010 World Cup Memorabilia.
Turning down numerous offers for ganja on the street corners.
Wandering the halls of museums, hospitals, the University of Cape Town, and the local library.
Meeting people from Nigeria, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and occasionally, South Africa.
Obviously living the rough life.
Weirdest scene of the weekend: a beer ad being filmed downtown, involving "snow" (white sand) and a snowboarder.
Last weekend we checked out the nightlife at a place in the city called Tiger Tiger (just like Stardust Lounge, the name says it all) where drinks were cheap and the music was all American pop. A particularly bizarre moment was being on the dance floor when Michael Jackson's "Doesn't Matter If You're Black Or White" came on. Everyone in the club (most of them white 20-somethings) started singing along emphatically, and I looked around and realized the only blacks in the place were 3 very overworked bartenders, and a cleaning lady who was constantly sweeping up broken glass off the dance floor from yet another wasted lacrosse-playing, Lacoste-wearing, stuck up white boy knocking beer bottles over. It appears in some places, it does still matter if you're black or white.
Also over the weekend, we finally got into the slums! Went to a church in Khayelitsha, full of locals and gorgeous chocolate babies running everywhere. The service was 3 hours long (that's how you know you're in Africa), but a good solid hour of it was nothing but music and dancing and hollering and clapping. And it was so, so good.
Friday, March 19, 2010
A Word About Our Sponsor.
We are staying with an extremely lovely older Jewish woman named Diana, who we think is about 80, but she won't confirm anything. I nannied Diana's grandchildren in Sydney last year, and am now in a house on the other side of the world filled with all of their photographs, which is quite funny. Diana's parents immigrated to Cape Town during the Holocaust and she's lived here all her life.. apart from a 2 years as a 20-something when she hitch-hiked all over Europe and taught Hebrew. She has been a wonderful resource, very gracious chauffeur to this beach and that museum, and even went out with us to the classy Stardust Lounge (the name says it all..) for St. Patrick's Day. We had to drag her out of the place when they closed at 11pm! Needless to say she's been a wonderful hostess.
Yesterday in the car:
Diana: Now girls, if you want, I can try and find you some men while you're here.
Andrea: Are they Jewish?
Ina: Are they under 60?
Yesterday in the car:
Diana: Now girls, if you want, I can try and find you some men while you're here.
Andrea: Are they Jewish?
Ina: Are they under 60?
Black, White, Green, and Purple.
South Africa is a crash course in racism. Not that everyone here is racist, but it's a place where you're quickly forced to sort out how just you feel about other races, your own in particular.
I cannot explain to you how surreal it is being in such an ethnically diverse country where people are still wrestling so much with the basic issue of skin colour. You fit into 3 people groups here - whites, blacks, and coloureds (mixed race, Indian, Asian, etc.), and areas are actually described as a "coloured area" or "black area", the level of safety being highest in white areas. The apartheid may have ended 20 years ago, but things like park benches with WHITES ONLY written on them have been removed only within the last 10 years, if that tells you anything. I guess the most surprising thing to me is how positively many people really believe the 'white invasion' and consequent apartheid was for South Africa. It's startling to be in a posh, affluent part of the city and realize the street you're walking down is named after a well-known apartheid instigator. Cape Town feels so European in many ways, but in a lot of others it feels like it could be the American South about 10 years before slavery was abolished. There are enormous, sprawling white mansions with black maids working in them who either live in the servant's quarters, or go home to their family in the slums each day. Cape Town has 2 major slums, Khayelitsha and Gugulethu; both next to the main highway (meaning most whites drive by them at least a few times a week). I can only describe them as hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tiny shacks, as far as you can see, all leaning precariously on each other. Some are on top of each other. Entire families live in one of these shacks.
If you stay in the right parts of town, it's easy to ignore the history of the country. Unfortunately, I'm reading a particularly graphic book (incidentally called "Kaffir Boy", which I just learned is an Arabic slang term for blacks, essentially the equivalent of the N word. I've since quit taking the book out in public to read..) by a native South African who grew up during apartheid. The amount of suffering, oppression, and completely inhumane treatment the blacks suffered at the hands of the whites is absolutely shocking. While things are definitely improving, there's still a long way to go, as Khayelitsha and Gugulethu show.
Ina and I have heard, from various older sources, comments like, "There are SOME nice black people..." and "Isn't South Africa lovely? It's not all backwards like the rest of Africa!"
Seeing the slums the first day here in contrast with the wealthy white neighborhoods really angered me. I wrote a blog basically chewing out all white South Africans for being such selfish, racist power-trippers, and then I realized, who am I to talk? My ancestors did something disturbingly similar to a bunch of unsuspecting and innocent Indians just a few centuries back, and we weren't treating black people much better only 50 years ago. One would hope we'd all learned our lesson by now, but it takes some longer than others.
I cannot explain to you how surreal it is being in such an ethnically diverse country where people are still wrestling so much with the basic issue of skin colour. You fit into 3 people groups here - whites, blacks, and coloureds (mixed race, Indian, Asian, etc.), and areas are actually described as a "coloured area" or "black area", the level of safety being highest in white areas. The apartheid may have ended 20 years ago, but things like park benches with WHITES ONLY written on them have been removed only within the last 10 years, if that tells you anything. I guess the most surprising thing to me is how positively many people really believe the 'white invasion' and consequent apartheid was for South Africa. It's startling to be in a posh, affluent part of the city and realize the street you're walking down is named after a well-known apartheid instigator. Cape Town feels so European in many ways, but in a lot of others it feels like it could be the American South about 10 years before slavery was abolished. There are enormous, sprawling white mansions with black maids working in them who either live in the servant's quarters, or go home to their family in the slums each day. Cape Town has 2 major slums, Khayelitsha and Gugulethu; both next to the main highway (meaning most whites drive by them at least a few times a week). I can only describe them as hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tiny shacks, as far as you can see, all leaning precariously on each other. Some are on top of each other. Entire families live in one of these shacks.
If you stay in the right parts of town, it's easy to ignore the history of the country. Unfortunately, I'm reading a particularly graphic book (incidentally called "Kaffir Boy", which I just learned is an Arabic slang term for blacks, essentially the equivalent of the N word. I've since quit taking the book out in public to read..) by a native South African who grew up during apartheid. The amount of suffering, oppression, and completely inhumane treatment the blacks suffered at the hands of the whites is absolutely shocking. While things are definitely improving, there's still a long way to go, as Khayelitsha and Gugulethu show.
Ina and I have heard, from various older sources, comments like, "There are SOME nice black people..." and "Isn't South Africa lovely? It's not all backwards like the rest of Africa!"
Seeing the slums the first day here in contrast with the wealthy white neighborhoods really angered me. I wrote a blog basically chewing out all white South Africans for being such selfish, racist power-trippers, and then I realized, who am I to talk? My ancestors did something disturbingly similar to a bunch of unsuspecting and innocent Indians just a few centuries back, and we weren't treating black people much better only 50 years ago. One would hope we'd all learned our lesson by now, but it takes some longer than others.
Photographic Evidence.
Chatting with the penguins at Boulders Beach.
I don't even know. I just knew I had to take a picture of it.
View of Cape Town from Rhode Memorial.
University of Cape Town.. best campus in the world.
Ina near the Atlantic Ocean..
And me in the Indian Ocean. Waaaay warmer!
Whaaaaaat?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Define "Safe".
My biggest concern upon arrival in South Africa was probably avoiding getting murdered after stepping off the airplane. Half the South Africans I know told me Cape Town was similar to Sydney or NYC -- relatively safe, just be smart and alert. The other half made it sound like stepping into a real life version of Grand Theft Auto -- muggings, robberies, rapes, drive-bys, all happening with non-chalant regularity. I heard of a man getting shot point-blank for his mobile phone, and how owners of nice cars often have 'flame throwers' installed on the sides to avoid the standard hijackings at stoplights. I wanted to side with the more Sydney-esque version of Cape Town, but thanks to all sorts of statistics validating South Africa as the most crime-ridden country in the world, it was hard not to be the tiniest bit paranoid.
Having been here a week, I've noticed that #1. "safe" is a very relative term, and #2 it depends on the area, obviously, but more importantly, you. Most places we've been feel relatively safe. Many are busy, but not chaotic, and with basic street smarts, you're fine. Most houses feel generally safe thanks to ridiculously extensive locking/alarm/security systems (I'm still trying to sort out if that should actually make you feel safer, or LESS so, because the more extensive the system, supposedly the higher risk of crime... right? Who really knows.). What's fascinating to me is the way in which many people (locals, who LIVE here) make targets of themselves. If you live in the midst of poverty but insist on driving the latest model BMW, aren't you kind of asking for it? If there's a slum full of hundreds of destitute and desperate people a few miles away and you choose to live in an 8-story mansion with a pool and tennis court, should you really be all that surprised when your house is broken into? Maybe it's my skepticism of the rich, white upper-class here, and the inevitable underlying racial tensions. But I've resolved the more basically you dress and present yourself, the less trouble you're likely to have. We'll see how this plays out..
Having been here a week, I've noticed that #1. "safe" is a very relative term, and #2 it depends on the area, obviously, but more importantly, you. Most places we've been feel relatively safe. Many are busy, but not chaotic, and with basic street smarts, you're fine. Most houses feel generally safe thanks to ridiculously extensive locking/alarm/security systems (I'm still trying to sort out if that should actually make you feel safer, or LESS so, because the more extensive the system, supposedly the higher risk of crime... right? Who really knows.). What's fascinating to me is the way in which many people (locals, who LIVE here) make targets of themselves. If you live in the midst of poverty but insist on driving the latest model BMW, aren't you kind of asking for it? If there's a slum full of hundreds of destitute and desperate people a few miles away and you choose to live in an 8-story mansion with a pool and tennis court, should you really be all that surprised when your house is broken into? Maybe it's my skepticism of the rich, white upper-class here, and the inevitable underlying racial tensions. But I've resolved the more basically you dress and present yourself, the less trouble you're likely to have. We'll see how this plays out..
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Cape Town. Ear Infection. The End.
While lying in bed this morning at 3am, wide awake, hungry, and with my left ear ready to explode off the side of my head, it occurred to me that I don't think I've had an ear infection since I was 10. So, it just makes sense that I would get one my first day in South Africa. Thank goodness for Dads who force you to bring antibiotics even though you swear you won't need them.
The journey over was 40 hours in total. Enough said. Factor in a sinus infection and maybe 4 hours of sleep over 3 days and it felt more like a week. On the up side, after putting on a few extra layers in the Frankfurt airport, I took the train into the city for the morning. It was beautiful and cold. I was forced to play the dreaded 'stupid American' role a few times with how little German I knew (do I really look that German?? Because even with a pack on, looking like a total tourist, people seemed to think I was local), but I met a nice man from Cote D'Ivoire on the train and we spoke French for a while which made up for it.
While in Frankfurt, I got an e.mail from Ina saying she was sick as a dog and couldn't fly till this weekend. So I arrived in Cape Town solo and made it to the suburb of Rondebosch. On the cab ride over, we passed one of the largest slums in Cape Town, Guguletu, which I'd just finished readinga book about last week. So surreal.
My dear hostess Diana's home is lovely and covered with flowers and sun. Off to take my pills and attempt sleep. Love to you all!
The journey over was 40 hours in total. Enough said. Factor in a sinus infection and maybe 4 hours of sleep over 3 days and it felt more like a week. On the up side, after putting on a few extra layers in the Frankfurt airport, I took the train into the city for the morning. It was beautiful and cold. I was forced to play the dreaded 'stupid American' role a few times with how little German I knew (do I really look that German?? Because even with a pack on, looking like a total tourist, people seemed to think I was local), but I met a nice man from Cote D'Ivoire on the train and we spoke French for a while which made up for it.
While in Frankfurt, I got an e.mail from Ina saying she was sick as a dog and couldn't fly till this weekend. So I arrived in Cape Town solo and made it to the suburb of Rondebosch. On the cab ride over, we passed one of the largest slums in Cape Town, Guguletu, which I'd just finished readinga book about last week. So surreal.
My dear hostess Diana's home is lovely and covered with flowers and sun. Off to take my pills and attempt sleep. Love to you all!
Monday, March 8, 2010
Hello Backpack, My Old Friend.
After finally nailing down tickets 10 days ago, a friend kindly informed me that Vancouver and Cape Town are exact opposite points of the globe, making it one of the longest flights ever. Thank goodness I'm flying Seattle to Cape Town... far more bearable.
Tentative flight plan: Seattle to Frankfurt [11 hours]. 14-hour layover in Frankfurt (hopefully spent in Frankfurt itself vs. just the airport). Frankfurt to Cape Town [another 11 hours].
The tentative route once in Africa:
The tentative plan: Meet my friend, Ina, in the Cape Town airport on Wednesday morning. Stay for a few weeks. Explore, check out UCT's Public Health Masters program, and intern with an AIDS project. The trip up to Zambia will most likely be via plane, and we'll be in a small town called Chingola for 2 weeks, where Ina has UK friends starting a self-sustaining farm/orphanage. A train will supposedly get us from Zambia to the coast of Tanzania (over the course of 3 days, or 5, depending on the number of track delays), and after a day or two in Dar Es Salaam, we'll (enthusiastically) jump on a bus for the 2-day trip north to Kenya. Our last stop is the dearly-loved Kitale, to see some much-missed faces and places from our internships there in 2008, and hopefully help Transformed International get it's first AIDS home started. Then fly home from Nairobi the end of May.
As I said, tenative, because that's how things go in Africa.
More from the other side of the world!
Tentative flight plan: Seattle to Frankfurt [11 hours]. 14-hour layover in Frankfurt (hopefully spent in Frankfurt itself vs. just the airport). Frankfurt to Cape Town [another 11 hours].
The tentative route once in Africa:
The tentative plan: Meet my friend, Ina, in the Cape Town airport on Wednesday morning. Stay for a few weeks. Explore, check out UCT's Public Health Masters program, and intern with an AIDS project. The trip up to Zambia will most likely be via plane, and we'll be in a small town called Chingola for 2 weeks, where Ina has UK friends starting a self-sustaining farm/orphanage. A train will supposedly get us from Zambia to the coast of Tanzania (over the course of 3 days, or 5, depending on the number of track delays), and after a day or two in Dar Es Salaam, we'll (enthusiastically) jump on a bus for the 2-day trip north to Kenya. Our last stop is the dearly-loved Kitale, to see some much-missed faces and places from our internships there in 2008, and hopefully help Transformed International get it's first AIDS home started. Then fly home from Nairobi the end of May.
As I said, tenative, because that's how things go in Africa.
More from the other side of the world!
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