Monday, April 26, 2010

Sweet mother of pearl, I have really let this blog thing go.

I might actually split this up into a couple different entries—since I wrote last, I have been to Cape Town, Durban, and down the Wild Coast—so it might take a little while.  This actually goes all the way back to March, so it’s not terribly fresh either…but I jotted down a few things in my notebook about each day while traveling, so it should be ok.  I also apologize that it’s basically going to be a chronology of what I’ve done—not really my thoughts, feelings, and reactions to it all.  Unfortunately, that would take much too long. Anywho, here goes.  I’ll start off with the couple nights leading up to Cape Town…

Elton John
On the Friday before we left, I went to an Elton John concert- amazing!  I’ll keep it short because I have so much else to write about, but it was pouring rain the entire time, we were super close to the stage, he was wearing an intensely flashy red suit, and he performed Circle of Life as his encore. It couldn’t have gotten much better—the rain made it even better, particularly because PE was in the midst of the worst drought in 88 years. 

Night in the Townships
The next night, we got to have a real taste of the township culture- something very unique because they often just aren’t safe for us to head into, especially at night.  An SJU graduate named James from the SA abroad group two years ago is actually teaching at a Benedictine school in Tanzania, and he visited us in PE for a little over a week.  He is still in contact with a few guys he met while studying here (they grew up in a local township), and he asked if they would be willing to take us out to a bar in the townships.  They said they would love to, and it turned out to be quite an experience.  After completely showing us up in several dance-offs, they somehow got us a kombi taxi—which we packed into like sardines and headed into New Brighton, the township that Pendla is in.  Before getting off, they told us that we needed to be careful, stick together, and never go somewhere in the bar alone—but if we did that, we would be fine.  We may as well have been aliens stepping off a mothership while we all got off the kombi—20 white kids really are aliens in a township.  There were people everywhere, and they were all staring at us.  Some yelled things to us, some welcomed us, but everyone was interested.  James’ friends were really protective of us, so that made us all feel much safer.  The most interesting part of the night was the attitude of the men in the township toward women.   They were completely about ownership; for example, one guy hassled me from the second I stepped off the kombi, continued into the bar, and followed me around everywhere I went.  He grabbed me, groped me, stroked my hair—did whatever he pleased, no matter how many times I told him to stop.  However, James took notice of this and told the guy I was with him—immediately, the guy backed off.  That turned out to be the trend for the night…as long as you had a guy say you were with them, you were fine—but until then, you had no control over what they would do.  One guy even asked another girl in our group, “Who owns you?”  This sense of ownership held true to this past weekend during a tour in the townships—my friend Katie had a man try to “buy” her.  It’s bizarre, much different from home, and extremely pervasive in the township culture—although a bit unnerving at first, we just have to remind ourselves that it’s a cultural difference.

Bungee Jumping
The next Monday, we packed up and headed off for our weeklong excursion to Cape Town.  On the way, however, was something I’ve been waiting for since I found out I was accepted into the South Africa program: the highest bungee jump in the world, off Bloukrans Bridge near Tsitsikama National Park, a couple hours from PE. It’s a 216 meter jump, which converts to about 709 feet—for all of you Minnesotans, imagine freefalling the height of over three and a half Wild Things stacked on top of each other. Hands down, it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  We got there, and the bridge is SO much bigger and more intimidating in person—I had seen many pictures, but none did it justice. I was in the second group to go, so after harnessing us up, we had to watch the other half of the group go.  I was so excited/nervous to jump, that the wait seemed like hours and hours.  Once it was our turn, however, we took the catwalk out to the bridge—probably one of the scariest parts haha.  It’s this see-through mesh metal catwalk under the bridge that gives every time you step…they tell you not to look down, but of course that just meant I looked down the entire way.  On the bridge, they bump dance music to get you pumped up and distract everyone from nerves, so naturally we turned it into a massive dance party.  I’m grateful for this, as it got me even more excited to jump and allowed us the chance to “wiggle out the nerves.”  When one of the workers came and told me it was my turn, I still wasn’t terribly nervous—just really excited.  They tie up your feet and get everything secured for the jump, and then they carry you out to the edge.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is where my mind went blank.  It was TERRIFYING being on the edge—but in a really good way.  They make you hang your toes off the edge, and then all of a sudden there is complete nothingness in front of you—and you’re expected to jump into it. Thankfully, my metal freak-out wasn’t able to last for long, because they counted me down, and all of a sudden I was airborne. The first few seconds are definitely the craziest—it wasn’t a stomach-drop feeling, it was soo much different…really hard to describe actually.  Basically, it was the coolest feeling ever and it’s too hard to put into words.  I also realized I am still extremely capable of producing the most shrill, blood-curdling scream ever.  Allllllll the way down.  So much fun—I’m hoping to get back once more before I head home, because I reeeeally want to jump backwards. J



CAPE TOWN
After jumping, we went to Knysna (gorgeous) for a little while, then headed to our backpackers in George.  The next day, we finished the drive to Cape Town.  First, a little bit about CT…it’s the second largest city in SA, and it filled with history and culture.  It’s much, much different than any other city I’ve been to in SA…firstly because of its cultural makeup.  There are tons of coloured people in CT—much more so than in any other part of SA.  The Western Cape (CT’s province) is controlled by the DA rather than the ANC, further proving its uniqueness from the rest of the country. Rolling into CT was such an interesting experience, because it was unlike any of the other cities I have been in—it was much more like a city at home. Some parts of the city were so westernized that I felt like I was at home in Minneapolis, so that was a much different experience.  It’s an absolutely gorgeous city, right on the ocean, with the famous Table Mountain towering over it all.  CT is also the location of Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.  I had heard all sorts of things about Cape Town, and I immediately felt like I could spent quite a while there.

CT Day 1:
We arrived, settled in to our guest house (our rooms were twice the size of langerry!), got some dinner with a couple people, and then headed to a play near District 6.  It was a play written by Athol Fugard, who is known as the “Shakespeare of Africa.”  The play was alright, but it was just really nice to be at the theater.  Opportunities for stuff like that are few and far between here, so it was a nice change of pace.

CT Day 2:
This was a big day.  We headed out on this huge Ilios Tours bus for our day-long city tour, hike of Table Mountain included.  Because the weather on the mountain tends to get foggier as the day goes on, we headed to the mountain first thing.  They have cable cars to take up, but almost all of us decided to make the hike.  It’s kind of one of those “we’re in Cape Town, we HAVE to climb it” sort of things… let me just say…there are cable cars for a reason.  It was tough!  It was basically these big boulders that kind of served as steps the whole way up—this made it much tougher on the leg muscles, compared to a normal mountain hike.  I hiked with Courtney S, Cat, Saige, and Jenny though, so that made it a little more bearable.  Once we got to the top, however, it was all worth it! The views were absolutely gorgeous—the ocean on one side, the city on the other.  It was a really great experience, and I’m really happy I decided to make the climb.  This is a picture of one of the views from the top of the mountain-beautiful!


 After Table Mountain, we headed to the Market Square for lunch and shopping at the markets.  Although I didn’t buy anything, the markets were fun to look at as always.  Following lunch, we headed to District 6.  District 6 (the area that the movie District 9 is based on) refers to an area where people of all different races—whites, blacks, coloureds, and Indians—lived together peacefully in a vibrant community. Under apartheid, however, it was declared as a whites-only area, and its residents were booted out.  The buildings were destroyed, but nothing was ever built there—it just turned into a wasteland.  It has kind of become the prime example for apartheid’s forced removals…just now are they starting to let people move back to the area.  It was really great to go there because our tour guide, Colin, actually lived in District 6 and was forced to leave.  After seeing the neighborhood, we went to the museum so we had a deeper understanding of what we saw.

Following District 6, we saw several other places throughout CT—parliament, some gardens, another museum…but the end of the day we were pretty wiped, so it was nice to be done.  That evening, we headed to Mama Afrika’s—a well-renowned restaurant on the famous Long Street—for a dinner of chicken curry, potkie, lamb, samoosas, and all sorts of other stuff.  It was great, and the entertainment was wonderful.

CT Day 3:
Thursday was another day with Ilios.  This time, we headed down the peninsula to Cape Point, which is the most southwestern point on the African continent.  It was beautiful, but the windiest place on the planet.  Next, we went to Boulder’s Beach—a penguin colony!  I was so excited.  I absolutely loved it….the penguins were everywhere, so adorable. That evening, we went to a free jazz concert in the Market Square.  So much fun!  There was a huge crowd, the music was great, and it was a great place to relax with friends.

Cape of Good Hope, right next to Cape Point


PENGUINS!

CT Day 4:
A few of us went to the Holocaust Museum in the morning, which was really interesting because it was from SA’s point of view.  It was really amazing to see the connections between the Holocaust and apartheid.  They are rooted under the exact same principle…thankfully, apartheid never reached the point of systemized genocide. 

That afternoon, we loaded on a ferry and headed to Robben Island.  Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years as a political prisoner, spent 18 of those on the island’s maximum security prison.  This was my favorite part of the Cape Town trip—having read Long Walk to Freedom, I knew about all of the different places in the prison we saw…the lime quarries they worked in, the garden Mandela planted while he was there, the tiny slab that served as their courtyard…it was absolutely incredible.  Actually walking through all of the places that I had imagined in my head was such a powerful, indescribable experience.  All of the guides for the prison tours were actual political prisoners on the island, which gives the tour a whole new dimension of awesomeness.  My guide was sentenced to 30 years on 16 charges, but was released after 7, thanks to SA’s liberation.  Ahhh.  It was one of the coolest things…if any of you decide to make the trek all the way down here, be sure to read Long Walk to Freedom first—in fact, read it anyway. J  

Mandela's cell--hard to believe he spent so long and did so much all in this tiny cell.


Cape Town Day 5:
We spent Saturday soaking up a bit of the Western Cape’s culture—wine. SA is known for its wine and exports to countries all over the world…basically everywhere besides the United States haha.  We headed to a winery called Spier where we took part in a wine tasting- it was a lot of fun and interesting to learn about the wines. After the tasting, we had lunch in the heart of wine country—Stellenbosch.  Although we had to deal with lots of beggars (price of eating at an outdoor restaurant), it was still nice to see a bit of the quaint university town.


That evening, we got to go to the Cape Town International Jazz Festival.  It was so huge!  They had the biggest names in South African jazz (my favorite being Vusi Mahlasela!), so we just danced the night away to some really wonderful music. The crowd was so much fun to watch in itself—everyone was full-out dancing, much more than the typical head bob you get at concerts back home. 

Last day of CT and Durban, Day 1:

The night at the jazz festival was our last in Cape Town—Sunday would be the start of spring break.  Karla, Caitlin, Jenny, and I chose to fly from CT to Durban, then drive down the Wild Coast—aka the eastern coast of SA.  Durban is the third-largest city in SA, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.  There is a large Indian population there, and their culture is much more pervasive than anywhere else in the country.  There aren’t many white (or coloured for that matter) people in Durban at all, so that was a switch from Cape Town. It’s also not the safest place in the world, but it’s all a matter of staying out of certain places and making good decisions. 

Before catching our flight, Karla and I found a church down the road from our guesthouse in Cape Town so we could attend an Easter service.  It was quite the experience, but it was nice to celebrate Easter with a huge group of South Africans.  Our flight went completely smoothly, and we got to our hostel without much of a problem at all.  We spent the evening relaxing, getting dinner at a great place with lots of entertainment, and making plans for the morning.

Durban Day 2:
We signed up for a city tour with our hostel, but we weren’t really sure what to expect.  After waiting for an hour past our pickup time, our faithful guide Mbuso rolled up in his beat-up kombi, bumping Zulu hip hop.  A huge smile crossed my face immediately, because I knew the tour definitely wouldn’t be boring.  We spent the entire day with Mbuso…he brought us all over Durban, taking us to a huge Indian market, a fish and meat market, a couple museums…Mbuso is 32 years old so he remembers the apartheid era quite clearly, and he offered quite a bit of really good insight.  One of my favorite parts of the morning was a museum display on Darwinism and the human genome, which was presented under the framework of SA’s race relations (99.9% of all humans share identical genes—but it’s just that .01% variation that defines SA’s past and present). 

After lunch was the coolest part of the day, however—a trip into Cato Manor, the township that Mbuso lives in.  Before heading into Cato Manor, we stopped at a gas station to get bags of candy to hand out to the kids.  Even though townships are everywhere and I’ve been exposed to them over and over since January, seeing them is always a shock to the system—it’s absolutely heartbreaking.  Cato Manor is on a hill, which adds a whole new set of challenges for the people living there.  Mbuso drove us through some areas before taking us to his house, which is an RDP government unit.  After hanging at his place for a little while, we went for a walk through the shacks…something I haven’t been able to do in my time here. I’ve seen countless shantytowns from the outside and have walked around in the more developed areas of townships, but walking around throughout the shacks is a pretty rare opportunity for a white person.  The conditions were absolutely devastating—much worse than it even looks from the outside.  It smells terrible in most areas, there is sewage everywhere, and sometimes things were so packed that I didn’t feel like I had room to breathe.  There were children everywhere, which was wonderful and heartbreaking to see at the same time.  They were so happy that we had “sweeties” for them—even many of the adults took candy from us.  Everyone was incredibly welcoming and happy to see us, despite their living conditions.  I wish I could have gotten more pictures, but I didn’t feel like it would be very respectful to whip out my multi-hundred dollar camera to take pictures of the extreme poverty that is reality for the township residents.  I did manage to get a few pictures though, which I was very happy about—I want to be sure to preserve that experience for the rest of my life.





Durban Day 3
I know this is getting terribly long, so I’ll try to make these entries shorter—on our third day, we capitalized on Durban’s warm weather and sandy beaches by relaxing on the beach and swimming all day.  It was Caitlin’s birthday, so we went out to dinner then hung out on the roof of our hostel…we talked to a couple guys from Stellenbosch that told us about growing up in SA and the violence they have experienced personally.  No matter how many personal stories I hear, it still blows my mind that violence is so commonplace.

Port St Johns
Most of the Wednesday of spring break was spent traveling.  We packed up all four of us and all of our luggage into our tiny Kia Piccanto rental, and headed out on the long drive to Port St. Johns on the Wild Coast.  Jenny was amazing, it was her second time driving a manual ever—and she got us there safely (although after many, many kills and peel-outs! ;) ).  Port St Johns is a small beach town with beautiful beaches, rivers, and mountains…and very few Afrikaners.  We got to our hostel, which was this super laid back place called the Jungle Monkey.  The guys who worked there were really cool and a lot of fun to hang out with.  They took us up to an airstrip for the sunset and a couple sundowners, which was beautiful and a lot of fun…then we spent the night relaxing, listening to the live music, and playing the djembe with a few locals.

Bulungula
The next day, we packed up and headed to Bulungula, which is an extremely rural Xhosa village on the Wild Coast.  On the way, we stopped at Hole in the Wall, which is this huge rock formation created by crashing waves over thousands of years.  Although we didn’t have much time there, I jumped in and played in the waves for a few minutes…the water was so warm, I loved it.


The drive to Bulungula was long, particularly due to the large amount of “off-roading” it required. I didn’t mind, however, because the drive was gorgeous.  We passed rural village after rural village, where rondavels (mudhuts) decorate rolling green hills.  After finally arriving to the place we could park our car, we took another hour-long shuttle back to the backpackers…it was a VERY bumpy ride.  Bulungula is a backpacker’s hostel in the village, and is one of the first places trying out community-based tourism.  Most of the people in the village aren’t really even sure what tourism actually is (there isn’t a word for it in Xhosa), but the hostel is a way to bring some money and sustainable employment to the villagers.  It is 40% owned and run by the villagers, and all activities are completely run by the locals.  It’s really out in the middle of nowhere, has compost toilets and showers you heat by lighting toilet paper on fire, and has no electricity.  The village is beautiful…huge green hills and a breathtakingly beautiful beach.  I was OBSESSED with bulungula.  It was paradise…completely remote and relaxing.  That evening we just had dinner and relaxed, because the next morning we had to get up for the Women’s Power tour we signed up for.  

Snapped on the drive out to Bulungula...that hut on the left is rondavel. See why I tell you Africa is beautiful?


The village.

 In the morning, a local woman, Kululwa, took us on a hike through to the village to her hut.  We spent the entire morning and early afternoon with her, learning about how women in rural Xhosa villages live. We fetched water and firewood, carrying both back on our heads, and helped prepare a lunch of samp. One of the more “hands-on” things we did was help make a mudbrick for another hut to be made of—this involved filling a brick mold with cow dung and mud…it took a while for my fingernails to be clean again. We had our faces painted and played with her adorable son as well, so it was a lot of fun.  It was really great to see how much the women do in the villages—in the generally non-gender-friendly, borderline-sexist culture of South Africa, it was great to see these women so empowered over their roles in the village.

Some of the girls we helped make mudbricks...yumm.


Kululwa's little guy!

After the women’s power tour, I played in the ocean for a while (I have some scars to show for it!), then got a massage. J  A local Xhosa villager offered massages for only R100 (about $15), so I couldn’t resist.  It was a great way to relax, with nothing but the sounds of crashing waves in the background.  That evening while enjoying the sunset and the waves, a little 5-year-old named Mila came to sit by me.  I ended up spending the majority of my evening hanging out with Mila and several other kids that came to join us, which was actually pretty fun—the kids were really cute and a lot of fun to play with.  There were lots of local villagers that hung out at the hostel as well, but the vast majority of locals don’t speak English (and I certainly don’t speak Xhosa!), so unfortunately I wasn’t able to communicate with them very easily.  It was a great, relaxing night, and I really enjoyed it.  (side note—the stars were unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.  I had no idea there were so many stars in the sky…unbelievable.)

East London
Although we wanted to stay longer at Bulungula, time didn’t allow it.  We spent the majority of our day traveling again, heading back toward PE. On the way, we stopped in Qunu—Nelson Mandela’s childhood village and current place of residence.  I was so excited!  We went to the Nelson Mandela Museum, and one of the guards told us where Mandela’s retirement house is…it’s right on the road we were traveling on!  Obviously, we lurked outside of it while we drove by…I tried to snap as many pictures as I could…since he’s retired and doesn’t really travel or do many appearances anymore, we figured he had to be inside!  He had a pretty extensive security gate on the outside so there wasn’t any way we could sneak in (yeah, we’re that creepy), but it was still really exciting to see.  VIVA MADIBA!

That night, we stayed in East London to break up the drive back to PE.  Nothing too exciting—quite a bit like PE actually.  After dinner we just hung out at our backpackers and tried to get some reading done.

Back to PE
The next morning we packed up and drove the last few hours to PE. Having been gone for two weeks, it was really nice to be back—it’s crazy how much this place feels like home now.  Overall, it was a great spring break—I got to see three very different parts of SA (Cape Town, Durban, and the Wild Coast), all while having a blast with my friends. 

Since CT and spring break, nothing too out of the ordinary has gone on.  We have LOTS of homework from here on out, so that consumes a good amount of time.  Pendla has been wonderful as usual, but I don’t really have room to blog about that now.  I’ve really been taking notice of race relations and racial tensions here lately…they’ve obviously been extremely prevalent from the beginning, but I’ve just really been noticing and reflecting on them a lot lately.

I can’t believe I have less than a month left here!  My time has flown by ridiculously fast.  I have never had such mixed feelings about something before—although I’m excited to see everyone and get back to a few American things I miss, it’s going to be soo hard to leave here.  Leaving the kids at Pendla and my friends I’ve met here is going to be crushing—I’m dreading it. There are so many things about this country that I’m going to miss, and I’m just starting to deal with it all now.  BUT, I am also ready to enjoy as much as I can with my time I have left here—it’s going to fly by!  Thanks you all for listening to this excessively long blog post…sorry I let it go for so long as well!  Missing you all and hoping that you’re enjoying the springtime warmth and sunshine.

Big hugs from under the African sun,
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