Cultural Immersion of the Best Variety: Stormers Game, Mowbray Pub Crawl, and Liesbeeck Party

So the last couple of weeks have been busier with work than I would have liked. Yes indeed, I do have schoolwork done here despite it’s glaring absence in my blog. Despite being pretty busy writing papers on everything from Shaka Zulu the famous 19th century king of the Zulu, to the private security industry in South Africa, to the development of a South African dance aesthetic (yeah, you can laugh about that one) I have managed to have a good time on the weekends and actually spent a great deal of time with the locals.

Starting last Friday night, April 30th, the shenanigans with the locals commenced as I went to my second Stormers game of the year. They’re the beloved local professional rugby team and are currently in an ongoing heated battle for the championship. We managed to get standing room tickets to the game, which was played against the Crusaders, who at the time were tied with them for second in the league. The night was one of debauchery typical of rugby games as we spent nearly the entire second half of the game in the pub at the stadium chatting and cheering with a number of middle-aged colored men who were huge Stormers fans. Amidst the jeers we talked with them about rugby and their love for the city and the team. Many bellies were bumped. The Stormers won handily.

(The Crew Before Heading Out on the Pub Crawl)

The next morning came the much anticipated Mowbray pub crawl that my friend Pat and I had organized. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a pub crawl, the basic idea is that you go from one bar to another in the same neighborhood, having a drink or two at each bar. We had gone to a number of the places in the days leading up the crawl and they awaited the arrival of 15 or so of us from Liesbeeck who all donned our Liesbeeck t-shirts for the occasion. The crawl began at The Fat Cactus, a tex-mex restaurant with pretty good margaritas and better food (for South Africa of course). Next came “The Greek” our favorite local eating joint (The shawarma royale has gained legendary status in my circle of friends) which isn’t exactly the type of place for a pub crawl, but we love it so much we needed to include it, so we each had a glass of wine there.

(How Could We Forget About The Greek)

From there it was off to African Rest, Champs on Main, and Champs of Vic, all three of which are not used to seeing white Americans or any white folk for that matter in their bars. In African Rest we had an amazing time dancing and partying with the African men who were there. Outside the sun still shone but inside the bar pumped with music dancing. We met nearly every person in the bar including the Djs. We told them we were planning a party for the following week that they should come play at. They were very excited at the prospect and Pat exchanged numbers with them. Everyone in the bar was genuinely excited that we were there, super friendly, and eager to talk with us. As Americans, the color of our skin doesn’t come with the same baggage that it does for South Africans. It’s been my experience that many working class black Africans make a real distinction between white Americans and white South Africans. They are eager to meet us and find us new and interesting, whereas they are hesitant to meet white South Africans whom they suspect are racist or look down on them. I by no means what to paint of picture that all black Africans think white South Africans are racists, I just want to stress that being white and American means something very different for some people than being white and South African does.

Hanging out at African Rest...
Notice the Elephant and Cheetah Painted on the Wall

The night ended with a trip over to Obs for some KFC where I had a long conversation with two local students in line for our chicken and who gave Elle, David, and I a ride back to Liesbeeck afterward. The crawl was so much fun. I only wish you could picture what a crowd of 15 Americans walking through the working class neighborhood of Mowbray in the middle of the afternoon wearing matching t-shirts looked like. Everyone on the streets starred in confusion as we reveled in excitement representing the neighborhood that despite its grunginess has grown near and dear to our hearts for its character and acquired the endearing nickname of Mowbreezy.

That brings us to this weekend. For the second time this semester my flatmates and I hosted a party, which gathered quite an eclectic group of people. Americans, European exchange students, and Africans shared conversation and Black Label in our small apartment (until ultimately the party was shut down for noise complaints). The best part of the whole affair is that we were actually able to get the Djs from African Rest (all four of them) to come set up their equipment in our apartment and spin their jams. The guys were ecstatic to be invited to the party and as was soon revealed to me in a conversation with them, it meant a great deal to them to be there. Dj Vuysi explained to me that they had just started playing at African Rest a few weeks ago and that they weren’t paid to play. They live in Khayelitsha and take the train every weekend day with all their equipment to Mowbray to play for free in hope of getting a paying gig sometime soon. The owner of the bar only pays their (very cheap) train fare. Vuysi explained to me that they were all so excited to meet us and so thankful that we’d given them an opportunity to play. More than anything it seemed as if he was just happy we were hanging out. In a moment that really hit home, he told me that we were the first white people he’d ever met who’d wanted him around. Wow.

The Desert is Ablaze: AfrikaBurn

It was Saturday morning April 24th. We had just finished stuffing every last loaf of bread and bottle of water into the tiny truck of our radio-less manual rental car and were finally off on the five hour drive to our latest adventure. AfrikaBurn is an annual self proclaimed “creative arts and freedom of expression festival” held in the middle of the desert about halfway along the longest stretch of road in South Africa without a town. We’d heard various tid bits about it through the grapevine but as we left Cape Town that morning only really knew that we were going into the desert and that we were going to see some pretty sweet things burn.


The drive north was quiet (no radio) as we eagerly anticipated the festival. On the way we popped a tire, allowing me a second opportunity this semester to show off the ‘ol Rudnick handy-man capabilities (and who says Jewish men are hopeless when it comes to fixing things). When we finally arrived we invited to get out of our cars and ring the “virgin bell” a massive chime made of random metal objects, announcing the arrival of more first timers to the festival. The makeshift village that had been set up stretched in a large half circle around various installations (which I would later find out were all going to be burned down). The people who made their way in and out of the various tents that made up the half circle were dressed in all sorts of strange clothing. We had arrived. As we pulled in we turned off the car to stop for a moment and see where the car of girls was (Pat, Max, Marshall, and I drove together and Lilly, Becca, Farley, Elle, and Haleigh caravanned alongside in another car). We’re still not exactly sure how it happened, but in the process of taking the key out of the ignition, the key cracked down the middle. Now I’ve never see a key crack before, but I’m in Africa so I’ve grown to expect the unexpected. Anyhow, we found the girls, put the car in neutral, and pushed it to a spot that we decided would be suitable to set up camp. By the time we got there and got our things set up the sun was setting and we decided we weren’t leaving until Tuesday morning so we’d figure out what do due about the key the next day.

(Flat Tire)

(Our Makeshift Camp)

After making some sandwiches for dinner, the party began. We spent the night roaming around the various tents in the village. Some were low key with people just hanging out, others had DJ’s and were packed with raging dancers. My favorite was one of the dancing tents that looked like a giant octopus. Everywhere I went this one cubby topless woman kept appearing with glow sticks wrapped around her breasts. You know, the kind they give out at bar mitzvahs that as kids we used to wrap around our arms and legs and head and necks. I always was amazed by how many ways kids managed to wrap a glow stick. Now I’ll be honest she was not by any means attractive but the glow sticks made it hard to look away. It was clear everyone had come to have a good time.

The next morning we awoke and donned the vests I had bought at a second hand store in Mowbray a couple of days earlier for the occasion. The vests were made of the same material as kitchen mitts and were covered in designs of various African animal skins. I had gone to the store to find something strange for my boys and I to wear at the festival, needless to say the vests were perfect. After having our faces painted with African-looking designs by the girls, we wandered around talking to people and seeing the variety of tents in the village. I added a small design to a beautiful communal mural that was being painted (I decided after the fact that I had drawn a dove) and inquisitively wandered around in my vest and sunglasses as the Africa sun beat down on my bare chest.

(The Boys in Our Vests)

(Getting My Face Painted by Lilly)

After spending a few hours talking to people and enjoying the village we decided to try and find someone who was working for the festival to see if they could help us out with our car. After talking to a few people, one guy directed us to jump on his enormous man trike and drove us back over to our car. The trike was covered in metal spikes and looked like something Doc Brown from Back to the Future had made. In one swift movement the man broke off the end piece of the key that at this point was just hanging on, and shoved it into the ignition. He then pulled out a screwdriver from his pocket and used it to start the car. Great success! We were going to leave the desert alive. After the car problem had been solved I went and took a long celebratory nap and woke up as the sun was setting. Deciding it was too much effort to cook the mac and cheese we’d brought for dinner, we ate biltong and NikNak sandwiches and began the festivities once again. As the evening began, the first controlled burning began and a new burning followed every forty five minutes or so as the night rolled on. The fiery displays, ranging from a massive wooden ball with giant wooden men standing on it to a swinging pendulum of fire, organized by the festival personnel were incredible and one stretched what seemed like 100 feet into the sky. I gazed in awe at the fire as a handful of naked men and women interspersed a crowd of people who danced around the flames. I’ve often found myself memorized staring into camp fires, so these enormous fires left me speechless. We spent the entire night migrating from fire to fire like insects to the light. The final display I watched from a distance, standing on top of a pyramid of huge Lego blocks next to a giant version of the Lego man that had been constructed in the middle of the village. As the fire died down, we decided that we needed to make a fire of our own and gathered some spare wood and headed back to our car where we used the lamp oil we had bought to set our little pile ablaze. What an evening.

(Revisiting the Lego Man the Morning After)


(The Crew)

The next morning we packed up and after spending a little more time wandering around the village headed back to Cape Town. Now just our luck, in order to open the hatch for the gas tank you needed to use the key, so as we left we knew we needed to get more than 500 kilometers on whatever gas we had in the tank. As we left the gauge read that the tank was near full, but it hadn’t changed in a while and we wondered how accurate it really was. As we got close to Mowbray and our beloved Liesbeeck, the gaslight went on and short after the gauge hit empty. Now it was already dark and this point and we were pretty worried about what would happen if we ran out of gas at night outside of the townships we were passing. Somehow we made it back to Liesbeeck without running out of gas. Wowzers, that could have gone horribly wrong, but thanks to mother Afrika another crazy adventure was in the books.

Note: So the camera has been out of commission for a while and I haven't managed to get it fixed yet, so most of these pictures weren't taken by me. Alot of the really sweet ones were taken by my friend Becca. Just didn't want to be taking credit for someone else's work...

A Dream Come True: Swimming with Dolphins and Scuba Diving with Sharks

It all began last Friday. I was climbing the Jammie Steps (the central meeting point on campus) and ran into David Micley, an old friend and in fact, the starting center that I backed up my Junior year for the old New Jew heifers (yes, my high school mascot was a red female cow). Anyhow, he told me about how he'd gone diving in Mozambique over break and was going diving again on Saturday. He offered for me to come along, but I'd already committed to a river-rafting trip I couldn't back out of. Turns out, the dive on Saturday was canceled because the conditions were poor and they had rescheduled for today (Tuesday April 13th). Lucky for me, I don't have many classes on Tuesdays and excitedly arranged to come and bring along another friend of mine Chris (the same Chris I went on the Garden Route with early in the semester).

We met the group early this morning and headed out to False Bay. The plan was to go check out Seal Island, (it's pretty self explanatory--it's an Island with a lot of seals on it) which is actually the spot where the famous Planet Earth scene of a great white jumping out of the water to eat a seal was filmed, and then head back into the bay to go diving. On our way to seal island we came across a herd, or flock, or gaggle, or pack, or whatever the right word is, of dolphins! What had to have been at least 500 dolphins filled the surrounding waters, jumping out of the water, swimming within feet of the boat, almost close enough to touch. Everyone on the boat went nuts, as we raced along with the dolphins. All of a sudden the dolphins doubled their speed and we realized that they were hunting fish. All along, birds had been following the group, and not long after the dolphins began speeding up, the birds began to plummet all the way into the water, plucking out fish the dolphins had been chasing. We watched absolutely awe struck. In fact, just the other day my friends and I had seen the exact same thing take place in an episode of Planet Earth...nuts. A smile formed on my face that couldn't be washed away even by the loads of salt water that splashed into my face. After observing for a while, we decided we needed to get in on the action. We sped up to get in front of the dolphins then all got in the water with snorkels and played with the dolphins! As I dove down, the sonar cries of the dolphins got louder and louder. I tried to grab onto one for a ride but they were just too fast to get close enough. Since I was a little kid I've wanted to swim with dolphins and today I got a chance to do it in the open ocean. Really a dream come true.


After a while, we allowed ourselves to move on and made a short stop at Seal Island, gazing at the hundreds of seals and watching the babies cling tot he safer waters near the island so as to avoid sharks. After reaching the island we headed back into the bay and anchored near shore at a point called Pyramid Rock. There we finally dawned our tanks and headed down 35 feet to the bottom. At the bottom we were met by cow sharks, smaller sand sharks, and a variety of fish (no worries, they didn’t catch us by surprise). The cow sharks were bigger than me and quite imposing. They're real predators and will happily feast on a seal, but for some reason that no one has quite figured out don't attack humans. I watched as they swam within inches of me. At one point, one even swam through my legs! So to be honest it wasn't all that frightening. Once you're down there with them you get used to them. But, there was one moment where I was lying along the bottom staring a strange little looking fish right in the eye , losing track of the sharks, and when I turned up, there was a shark swimming within inches right above my head! Yeah, that one got the blood racing a bit. After about forty five minutes under water we came back up, climbed in the boat, and headed back to shore. And to think it was a Tuesday.

So while I'm at it I think I better just mention a few of the other things I've been up to in the last few weeks since my blogging hit a bit of a standstill for a while.

So I finally reached the summit of Table Mountain on Good Friday, April 2nd, because we had the day off. I can safely say I'm glad that I'm no longer am kept up at night to the sound of her teasing me.

(Kelly and I on Top of Table Mountain)

(Walking Amidst the Clouds)

Easter weekend also brought the Cape Town International Jazz festival to the convention center downtown. My friends and I went both to the free concert on Thursday and paid for all day tickets on Sunday. Artist from around the world came and I sat in a daze most of the day just sipping in the smoothness.

This past Saturday I went river rafting with CIEE. For some reason everyone on the program had thought we were going white water rafting but turns out the closest things we encountered to rapids were a few bumpy sections on the river. It was a great day nonetheless complete with a delicious braai when we returned to land.

On Sunday my friends, Pat, Jenny, and I headed to the aquarium. Though small, the aquarium has quite a good reputation in the city, and we arrived just in time to watch the divers hand feed turtles, sting rays, and sharks in the predator tank which was quite a treat. Later that evening we went out to a delicious Sushi meal at a place called Beluga, which had come highly recommended from friends. Quite a fishy day you could say.

Namibia: Exploring Untamed Africa

“Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands”
-Bob Dylan

So it's been a little while. I've fallen into a trap where I've been so busy doing things I haven't had time to write about them. The last ten days of March were spent traversing the beautiful and barren country of Namibia. For our spring break, (well here it’s fall break!) six friends and I made our way to the neighbor up north and road tripped across the country. We left Cape Town, on Friday March 19 boarding an overnight bus to Windhoek, (pronounced vindhuk) the capital of the second least densely populated country on the planet. In Windhoek, we met up with Milner, our gregarious local tour guide who then took us south to Sussusvlei, an area of rolling red sand dunes and jagged mountains. We spent three days hiking and playing in the vast openness and laughing at Milner’s antics, as he led seven Americans who’d never dreamed of coming to a place like this through his backyard. On Monday we bid farewell to Milner, rented cars (they gave us a Mercedes for some reason) and spent a night in Windhoek before heading off on our own.

(Watching the Sunrise Over the Dunes)

(NikNak Moutain!)



(Milner and I Enjoying a Windhoek Lager by the Fire)

Tuesday morning, after fully stocking the car with beer, NicNaks (a snack quite similar to Cheetoes but with a much better name) and biltong (South African beef jerky—but I like to think it’s classier to eat here) we made our way north to Etosha National Park. We spent Tuesday night at Namutoni capesite on the eastern edge of the park then proceeded west, spending the next two nights at Okaukeujo campsite on the west end of the park. We cooked delicious meals on the fire and slept beneath a sky bursting with stars. The park was incredible. We saw springbok, wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, cobra, hyena, buffalo, elephant, rhino, and in our last hour in the park, two imposing male lions. The vistas were straight out of The Lion King, and because it’s low season at the park, we had them for the most part to ourselves. Often I would look out and the land was so flat for so far that it looked like the ocean. Driving along the park’s dirt roads with the wind screaming through the windows and the sun beating down on the savannah filled me with a feeling of blissful liberation like I have perhaps never felt before.

(Overlooking the Etosha Pan)
(The Whole Gang)




(I've Decided that I Am Obsessed With Rhinos)

(Mama and Baby Zebra...Go Ahead Girls, Say it, "Awwwww")

Friday morning, we made our way back to Windhoek where we dropped our friend Elle off at the airport (she had to go back to Cape Town to meet her family) before heading west to the small coastal German tourist town of Swakopmund. Two nights in Swakopmund proved far more exciting than I’d expected. We our one full day there ATVing in the sand dunes outside town in the morning and lounging on the beach in the afternoon. We’d race up the sides of massive dunes until our ATVs lost speed, then make a sharp turn and soar down. We even stopped for an hour of sand boarding, where we got to lie face first on a greased piece of cardboard and speed down the dunes. It was like sledding for the first time all over again, only with snow swapping for sand in my mouth and eyes. At night we explored the strange and unique character of a town in the middle of nowhere Namibia populated mainly by German tourists (the country was colonized by Germany and remains a popular vacation spot for the volk). Come Sunday the 28th of March we returned the cars (somewhat resembling the cars they’d given us a week earlier) and flew back to Cape Town. After a remarkable trip we were sad to leave, but as I again laid foot on South African soil, I couldn’t help my self from singing and dancing in the airport (drawing some funny looks from locals). Ayoba Ayoba!

Between the seven of us we took enough pictures to publish a National Geographic book, so the ones I post here really can’t do the beauty of Namibia justice. So, here are a few individual highlights just to illuminate a bit how outrageous and fun the experience really was…

In no particular order:

1) As I emerge from the bus in Windhoek I look at the street sign to find I’m on Fidel Castro Street. Immediately I realized I was a long way even from South Africa, never mind the ol’ US of A. We would later drive by the intersection of Fidel Castro Street and Robert Mugabe Street.

2) My friend Pat taught me how to drive stick shift on our little Nissan Tida on an endless dirt road in Etosha National Park amidst zebra and springbok. I can’t think of a better place to have learned. I picked up pretty quickly, or so everyone claimed, but I wouldn’t trust myself doing city driving just yet. Nonetheless, I am quite certain Arjun is beaming thousands of miles away in St. Louis as he reads this.

3) Milner intended to take us on a short hike up a dune to watch the sunset our last evening in Sussusvlei. After almost an hour of hiking he plopped down in the sand in defeat. We weren’t going to get to the top and we had missed the sunset. In fact, Milner had lead us up the wrong side of the dune… it appears he’d had one too many beers. We plopped down alongside him, exhausted and sweaty, drinking our now warm beers that we’d lugged up the dune with us and watched the sunset reflect off my favorite mountain in the whole area, which we proudly named NicNak Mountain. Not you’re average sunset.

4) Coming within fifteen feet of an enourmous rhino who had made his way out of the brush into the road. Let’s just say I had my foot hovering over the gas pedal in case the big guy tried any shananagins.

5) Waking up when it was still dark to hike famous dune 45 in Sussusvlei for sunrise. As the beams of the new day lit up the red dunes I felt as if I had reached the Africa of storybooks. The desert is a remarkable place in that it seems to engulf you in it’s emptiness. It is so barren, and yet so beautiful.

6) Watching a sky exploding with stars from the roof of our truck in Sussusvlei. One of the driving factors that lead me to Namibia was the promise of incredible night skies and Sussusvlei did not disappoint. As I peered up at the sky it seemed I was looking at a sprawling city at night, there were just two many stars to even try and identify constellations. I felt minuscule. The stars mystify and amaze me more than any natural wonder.

7) Nearly running over a cobra as I backed up to see why the car with the other half of the crew had pulled over. Close call. Would have felt pretty terrible if I’d accidentally killed a cobra.

8) Watching wild ostriches race at full speed across the savanna. They’re known to top out at 45 mph. Really strange and fascinating birds.

9) As we were driving at full speed along a dirt road, Milner quickly came to a complete stop and hollered at us to jump out of the truck. On the side of the road was a chameleon, which had made it's way across from the grass on the far side of the road. We were all pretty amazed that Milner had spotted it going so fast, and we watched as it danced (chameleons lift up one foot at a time and leave it suspended for a second to cool it off as they walk, which looks a whole lot like a dance move people were probably rocking in the 80s) from the side of the road into a tree and changed color from the bright green of the grass to the brown of the tree bark.

10) Here’s a treat for you loyal readers who’ve read this far…
So in Swakopmund, at Dunes Backpackers where we stayed, we shared our hostel room with the three most stereotypical German men I’ve ever met. They introduced themselves as German carpenters (I thought that profession sorta died with Jesus, but I guess not) who had been living in Namibia for a few years doing carpentry. They informed us that they had been scheduled to go home soon, but that only a few days before our arrival the local beer house had burned down. One of them excitedly proclaimed, “Now we must stay to rebuild ze beerhaus!!” These guys were caricatures of themselves like you wouldn’t believe. They wore black vests, black corduroys, little ties, and funny black hats. (We even saw them out at a bar one night fully clad in their German attire, we couldn’t believe it.) If I haven’t painted a clear enough picture yet, I’ll tell you that when I walked into the hostel the first day, sitting on the bureau next to my bed was a bottle of Jagermeister, a German Bible, and a hatchet. I shit you not, there was a hatchet.

(Pat and I Couldn't Resist Trying on the Germans' Clothes While They Were Out)

Being Educated in Cape Town

I had my reservations. I had heard about these infamous “township tours” from various people and read about them in my travel guides and the idea of touring peoples’ neighborhoods to see just how poor so many of the city’s residents are and just how bad they have it made me really uncomfortable to say the least. When I had last visited Khayelitsha in a big group, on our visits to the various volunteer sites we were deciding between, the electronic sign on the bus read “UCT Fieldtrip.” Regardless of the fact that we had been coming hoping to help out, I felt uneasy for the rest of the day.

I actually hadn’t really planned on joining the tour until I got an enthusiastic email from my RA, Buchule, who lives in Khayelitsha, the night before the tour encouraging us all to come when I decided I may as well give it a go. I’ve come to believe down here that its better to try something and be in an informed position from which to criticize it then just avoid it all together. As it turns out, I was only marginally uncomfortable when Saturday came around, the tour was less of a tour then I’d built it up to be and only a small group turned out so we weren’t the monstrosity of a tourist group I had envisioned.

The highlight of the day was a visit to Chumisa Primary School, one of the forty or so schools that serves the population of more than a million and a half who live in Khayelitsha. Mr Bongo, who had been the principal and foundation of the school for the last twenty odd years spoke to us for more than an hour about the nature of life in the township, the problems the school faces, and more broadly, his experience with education in South Africa and his thoughts on where the country is going. He didn’t sugarcoat anything. He explained that the vast majority of his teachers are seriously under-qualified and don’t care very much about really educating the students. He explained that the township schools are seriously under-resourced and most provide no outlets to keep children away from drugs and violence after school hours. Detailing the legacy of apartheid he explained that before 1994, his students were funded at R1 a year by the government (that amounts to about 15 American cents per student per year). I could tell that this man has poured every ounce of his being into this school, he even sacrificed having a family in order to devote all his energy to the school. And yet, in the year before he retires, he is still really pessimistic about the future. He explained that modern South Africa is a powder keg of uneducated, unemployed people just waiting to explode. “The people living in the city don’t realize that the day will come when the people from the townships will march violently to the city and nothing will be able to be done to stop them.” I was pretty dumbstruck by what Mr. Bongo had to say. It was the first time I’d really gotten the scoop from someone so deeply entrenched in township education, and I left feeling pretty disheartened. As we left the guide who had arranged the tour presented Mr. Bongo with a charitable contribution from our group to be used for the school. I couldn’t help but think whatever small amount of money was in the envelope was futile.

Sunday brought a new day and a brighter outlook on the future of the black education in this city. My friend Brett, who I volunteer with at Leap, and I decided that we wanted to take our boys to Robin Island, an island off the coast of Cape Town that was used among other things as a prison from the early years of the Dutch colony until the early 1990s. Many of the political figures who battled apartheid were imprisoned on the island, including Nelson Mandela, who spent 18 years there. Three of the four kids had never been before and frankly would never be able to afford to go on their own. Brett and I hadn’t made our way there yet either and thought that going with them would be a good opportunity to be with the kids out of the school setting, see how they reacted to the tour, and give them an opportunity to learn about and take ownership of their own history. I bought the tickets the night before and we met the four boys (Kyna, Mcebisi, Seviwe, and Seobungo) at the waterfront, where the tour leaves, on Sunday morning.

The tour took us on a ferry to the island where we boarded a bus and were driven around and given a tour of the island. The tour ended at the prison where we were escorted around by a former political prisoner who had served time on the island and got to see the cell that housed the most famous man in the country. The tour was pretty informative and hearing first hand about life on the island from someone who’d lived there for seven years was particularly neat. The kids kept exclaiming about how much they enjoyed the trip, and told me that they hadn’t learned about many of the details of the history before. The funniest part of the day had to have been the ferry rides to and from the island. None of the boys had ever been on a big boat before and all got really dizzy and nauseous from the ride. I couldn’t help but burst out in laughter as Seviwe sunk to the floor of the deck and gripped the metal bars of the seat because it was windy on the deck and he was worried he was going to fall off. His face was priceless.

When we got back to the waterfront Brett and I bought the boys a late lunch, and they were really excited for the big bucket of KFC I plopped on the table (which for them is quite a treat). As Brett and I drove back to Mowbray we both agreed that we were really glad we’d taken the boys and that we couldn’t have seen Robin Island for the first time under better circumstances.

(Mandela's Prison Cell)

(Seviwe Holding on for Dear Life)

On Monday, I was back at Leap with the boys again and went with them to a public pool (which turned out was only a few blocks from my apartment) along with the rest of the tenth graders. It was a hot day and I swam in my shorts, laughing as the boys tried to one up each other as they dove into the pool. A few of them were pretty good swimmers considering they don’t have regular access of any kind to a pool and I even tried to teach a few of them the breaststroke and butterfly. They tried…and failed about as miserably as I do when I try to imitate their Xhosa. It was hysterical.

Peeking into Another Universe

Sitting on the couch in the small living room I listen as Wrefort tells me about his life in Oceanview. He explains that when he was a child he and his family were forcibly removed from their homes in a nearby coastal town and forced to come here, what at the time was an arid empty plot with only a single dirt road. He tells me that he has been working since he quit school after the eighth grade because he was already a few years older than his classmates—he’d never been very good at school. He tells me that he supports his four children and wife by transporting water in a four-wheel drive car up rocky hills and mountains to fight wildfires. He tells me things aren’t easy but that he’s trying to build a better life for his kids and ensure they have a supportive father and a decent education. He’s determined to see to it that they do more with their lives than he has been able to with his. Wrefort has a quiet kindness about him and for all he’s been through he has an optimistic outlook on life. He smiles as Margret, his bubbly wife, joins us in the living room with a large bottle of Black Label beer and plops her enormous bottom down on a seat. She hands me the bottle and I pour myself a glass of beer then hand her back the bottle. “No no,” she offers as she looks at me with a grin “now you pour for me—that’s how we do things here.”

I spent this past Friday evening until Sunday afternoon at Oceanview, a coloured township that we had stopped at briefly on our tour around the Cape peninsula a while back. This time I had the opportunity to live with a family for the weekend and get a first hand look into their lives. I slept in one of their older son’s beds in one of the two bedrooms in this very modest one floor home that was smaller than my apartment at school. Margret and Wrefort welcomed me, a complete stranger, into their home with such hospitality and grace. Margret refused to stop feeding me and Wrefort insited on taking me around with him on various activities to show me a good time. On Saturday he took me on a short hike up one of the hills surrounding the community and pointed out where everything was, explaining to me where he used to sneak through a white neighborhood to get to the beach as a child. Later in the afternoon, we went to Navy Day, a annual festival in which the Navy yard is opened to the public and people can walk onto the ships and see all sorts of exhibitions for free. Nine year old Tamir, their only daughter, gripped my hand, only releasing the grasp of her tiny fingerswhen Wrefort grew tired of carrying his four year old boy, Tylo, on his shoulders and promptly put him on mine. Let’s just say I got some interesting looks walking around the Navy yard with a coloured boy on my shoulders.

Later that night, Margret and I headed to her sister’s house where a small group of residents and a few American students had gathered to enjoy some boxed red wine, Black Label, and music. A few hours later I found myself in the back of a packed pickup truck speeding down the dirt roads of the town to Suzy Q’s, the local bar. Margret was anxious for some time away from the children and wasn’t going home until she got a chance to dance. A bit later there I was, in the middle of a circle on the dance floor twirling Margret around, in absolute hysteria as this woman who probably has a hundred pounds on me rocked moves like Rihanna, popping, locking, and most certainly dropping it. Best dance partner in South Africa yet.

As I parted ways with the family the next afternoon I was eternally grateful to them for their hospitality. Their kindness, generosity, and genuine excitement to tell me about their lives and to hear about mine were pretty remarkable. I left Oceanview full of meat and glowing from the amazing time I’d had. They insisted that I come back this weekend, and while I have too much work to join them, I know I’ll be back.

















That evening a bunch of friends and I headed back to Kirstenbosch Gardens for another concert—this time the group was called Goldfish and consisted of two former UCT students who were hybrids between DJ’s and Jazz musicians. They mixed and scratched as they rocked out on the sax, keyboard, flute, and upright base. The concert was straight debauchery.

(I've been experimenting with Adobe Photoshop a little bit lately)

Monday night came another night of classic collegiate fun. Drove on a bus full of screaming UCT students to watch our rugby team, the Ikeys, take on our rival University of Stellenbosch. We lost, but that was only a minor speedbump in an otherwise great night.