25 Feb 2009 – Zuma Rally

Once again, Saturday was split between homework, sleep, and small ventures into town. We made the most of the laid-back day because Sunday would be devoted to a very unique, all-afternoon ANC rally in the township of Khayelitsha. While many people went out to the city for dinner, the boys stayed behind to cook a much-anticipated dinner on the braai, and the few of us who’d stayed behind joined them for s’mores around 10 o’clock.

Much has already been written about Sunday’s events on Marita’s blog (including one of my own posts about the rally), so my descriptions here might be best supplemented with those posts, as it was a very exciting experience, and hardly possible to capture with a simple chronology of the events…

Sunday morning we were out of the house by 9:30, travelling by group van to a police station on the Cape Flats, where we would be meeting a bus bound for Khayelitsha Stadium. ANC president Zuma – whose credits include such descriptions as “grade three educated”, “common man”, and “alleged AIDS denialist” (all of which are debatable attributes) – was scheduled to make a speech at 2PM to an estimated tens of thousands of supporters. The ANC is a party synonymous with the freedom struggle during Apartheid, and as the party of Nelson Mandela and South African democracy, it continues to draw support from the majority of black South Africans, regardless of the party’s policies or individual scandals. Of course, this is not to suggest that the ANC, which currently holds more than 2/3rds of the seats in Parliament, is not worthy of its broad base of support, only that it has remained a political powerhouse in the fifteen years since the birth of democracy. Accordingly, the rally drew more than 20,000 supporters, most of whom came from within Khayelitsha and the surrounding townships.

The energy of anticipation was palpable from the moment we stepped onto the shuttle bus and were introduced to the booming cheers and soulful rally songs of the ANC. But the excitement hit all new levels when we stopped to pick up ANC t-shirts. Back on the nearly-full bus, we rolled past informal settlements while doing our best to join in the rally chants and drumming beats on the plastic sideboards. The streets near Khayelitsha Stadium were crowded with vendors, police, and countless local residents when we arrived, and we shuffled through the throngs of jubilant supporters (and countless odors) down the street to an opening in the cement wall that surrounds the “stadium” field.

It took a few minutes to get our bearings, as Jeremicia – who’d invited us to the event – settled us into a temporary spot amidst the crowd. We were too far from the temporary stage to see any of the speakers, but the event had not officially begun, and we spent the next twenty minutes mingling with the friendly people that surrounded us. We both took pictures and posed for them (for we were a demographic anomaly within the crowd: a group of “white” students at an ANC rally in the townships), and as we chorused the few lines of the ANC chants we could recall from the bus ride, we attracted even more amused looks and grins.

Once the initial speakers appeared on stage, we’d already reentered the stadium through a different gate and a marginally stricter security check to find our grassy seats just in front and to the left of the stage. We sat in front of a line of temporary metal fencing, which was all that separated us from the thousands of eager supporters crushing their way forward towards the stage, but on more than one occasion the barriers were nearly toppled by the enthusiastic crowd. Despite the security roaming the area in their neon vests, children began climbing over and sliding beneath the fences soon after we’d situated ourselves. They dashed around the empty dirt and grass by the sides and back of the stage or plunked down next to us to watch the event, but the futile struggle between the crowd-control police and the multiplying fence-jumpers was an ongoing feature of the entire afternoon. On more than one occasion, we were almost trampled by a flock of barefoot children as the police shooed them back away from the stage. But the atmosphere never grew contentious, and the speakers became more and more vivacious until Zuma, himself, appeared to deliver the long-awaited address. As he spoke directly to the people of Khayelitsha – and therefore using the traditional Xhosa language – we could only interpret Zuma’s messages through the expressive reactions of his target audience. We caught bits of the speech when he switched to English to run down a list of ANC achievements in social security and economic development, but otherwise we merely listened to the shouts of the crowd and the president’s charismatic but indecipherable delivery.

Most of us did not expect the dancing that followed the speech, let alone the way Zuma playfully jumped into the celebration on stage. But we readily stood to join in the musical merriment as the political rally unraveled into a community dance party at the stage-front. The children who’d sat amongst us during the speech now encouraged us to sing and dance to the (apparently well-known) musical performers who graced the stage, and the contagious excitement lasted nearly half an hour before the flood gates collapsed and the sea of once-restrained supporters came trampling toward the stage. We chose this moment to make a timely exit, retreating back up the busy street to the shuttle bus, and pausing only for a frenzied photo-op with a group of township residents outside the stadium.

The exhaustion that shown in our faces and slouched postures on the ride back to the house belied our general feeling of awe and appreciation for having just experienced such a rare cultural event. Even as we occupied the familiar, (relatively) quiet space of the group van, it was hard not to feel slightly dazed by the overwhelming sensory overload of the rally we’d just left.

Sunday night was a low-key affair, with much of the house uploading pictures and videos and processing the afternoon’s events. Monday we all headed out to our internships, conscious of the fact that our first major papers for our internship course were due on Thursday, and many of us needed to conduct informal interviews with our coworkers to gain more insight into the organizations. Between research on the history of South African social security legislation and small tasks at the Black Sash office, Cassidy and I made time to formulate the necessary questions for the office staff, whose answers we would use to support our research on the organization’s history and policy environment. Tuesday followed in much the same pattern at work, except that because Cassidy had to seek out help for her computer that had crashed the day before, I was on my own at Black Sash for the day. [Note: It is now Wednesday, and we’re finding that technical assistance – even with computers under warranty – is almost impossible to come by in South Africa.]

Though the past few mornings have been cool and moist, the afternoons have been unbelievably hot. The usual ocean breezes that prevent the stagnant summer air from settling have been irritatingly absent since Sunday, and for the third day in a row, the sun has baked the city into a lethargic shell of inactivity. Sweaty laborers slump in the shade of their construction projects, commuters linger outside the poorly-vented, sardine-tin minibuses with fretful resignation, and the business people who can afford to stay in their invaluably air-conditioned offices don’t even brave the walk to the cafes at lunch. When I arrived home after work on Tuesday, nearly half the house was already sprawled out by the pool (not quite as green as before), having abandoned the upstairs common room-turned-sauna without hesitation.

And yet, even after dinner, when it was time to convene for the weekly house meeting, the stifling heat had barely begun to lift. Still no wind. So we opted to move the meeting poolside, and proceeded to have our group discussion in the waning light of the evening. Few would disagree that the mood of the meeting was infinitely improved by the location, as our feet dangled into the refreshingly cool (if not slightly opaque) water.

20 Feb 2009 – Guest Lecturers, Masiphumelele, and the Cape Town Stormers

Wednesday was a blur of research at Black Sash and then more research in the evening as we tried to organize the specifics of our mini-excursion to Plettenberg Bay in two weeks. We looked into hostels that could accommodate our whole group, sent enquiries inquiries to group transport services, and determined distances, prices, and operating hours for the activities we wanted to do during the three-day trip. Thursday morning, some of us sat down with Ben and Marita to go over the plans and the budget, since Vincent’s class did not meet. Then we walked (or took the Jammie Shuttle) to UCT, where we listened to guest speaker Adrian Sayers explain the importance of social dialogue in the process of socioeconomic development.

We spent the hour between classes at Cocoa Wa-Wa café on Main Rd, sipping “Americanos on Ice” (iced coffees) and “Choccochino Crushes”, and then met up at Marita’s flat for a – we’ll call it spirited – debate on racism in America and South Africa. Our discussion was followed by a visit from a wonderfully engaging and charismatic woman, Jeremicia Seherie, who works as a lawyer for the national government. She provided a lot of background information into the current presidential race, the Zuma court case, and Constitutional law in South Africa. She also gave a brief but powerful lecture on the concept of Ubuntu that is at the core of South African society and community. For more on Ubuntu, which literally translates to I am because we are, I’m sure you can reference Marita’s blog.

On Friday, I left to catch the train to Fish Hoek at 8:30AM with Emily A, Michelle, and Michelle’s boyfriend Dan, who’s visiting for two weeks. We got off the train a little before 9:30 and faced the challenge of finding a minibus to take us to Masiphumelele Township, where TEARS is located. The minibus strike last week had prevented us from having to navigate yet another local minibus taxi rank, so we walked with as much confidence as we could muster towards the small cluster of minibuses up the block from the train station. Several bold drivers descended on our little pack in no time, coaxing us toward there vehicles even before we could rattle off our destination. The taxi hub was much smaller and quieter than the others we’d encountered, so when we climbed into a mostly-full taxi a minute later, it was uncharacteristically still and silent. We drove away from the coast and up the highway until we reached Masiphumelele Township, where the taxi took a right and began rolling through the streets between the informal shacks and rubbish heaps.As has been the case during every visit to the townships – which previously had been only by hired group transport – the narrow streets were lined with vendors and hair salons and children rolling spare tires through the dirt. We realized we didn’t recognize the area, and started to worry we weren’t anywhere near where we needed to be. Once everyone else had gotten off in the township, the driver pulled over at the main entrance to the settlement, in a dirt parking area beside the highway. People loitered at the edges or walked between the half dozen other minibuses parked in the lot, while others meandered up the asphalt walk beside the highway. The driver told us he could point us in the direction of the TEARS compound, which he insisted was just a few minutes walk, and still a bit wary, we got out of the minibus and followed up a few meters down the highway. The sideways glances we exchanged within our group betrayed the anxiety we all felt on account of being so dependent and defenseless in the alien environment. But once we caught site of the TEARS sign, we were summarily at ease and appreciative of the minibus driver’s guidance.

We spent most of the three hours at the animal rescue society walking the dogs up and down the same stretch of industrial road outside the compound. Most of the dogs were manageable and sweet-tempered, but one particular black hound tugged so hard as we passed the other dogs on the street that he broke his lead and dove viciously into a fight with a small dog passing by. The other volunteer walker and I wound up on the ground in a scuffle with the dogs – a precarious position, given the nature of dog fighting – who lunged and bit and growled at one another, through our flailing arms. It took almost a minute to pin the aggressor to the ground and get a hand looped under his collar, at which point the other walker and I stumbled to our feet and assessed the damage. I had a few cuts and scrapes, and she looked visibly shaken, but we dusted ourselves off and tracked down a new lead so that I could return the dog safely to the kennel. It wasn’t until later that I realized I’d lost my watch in scuffle and would now be at the mercy of true South African time.

On the way home from TEARS, we’d decided to stop at Muizenberg and soaked up the relaxing beach atmosphere for about an hour. The wind wasn’t as strong as the last time I’d been to the beach, but the waves were much bigger and the undertow stronger. At 3:00, Emily and I hopped back on the train so that we’d have time to go grocery shopping on Main Rd before returning to the house. The walk home from Checkers grocery store, however, was a major feat, as I’d had to add a week’s worth of groceries to my already-heavy bag from the morning (and adding insult to injury, it was a giant, hideously commercial bag with the word “Africa” and a picture of an elephant plastered across it in bright ink).
Nine of us had tickets to see the Super 14 rugby match between Cape Town’s Vodacom Stormers and Australia’s Queensland Reds. So at 6:15, three of us headed over to join the six who’d left for the pregame “tail-gating” earlier in the day. Newlands Stadium was about 45 minutes’ walk from the house and required walking to Main Rd, again, before taking a left and following the stream of pedestrian and vehicle traffic towards Claremont. Blue flags waved out the windows of cars headed for the stadium, and when we arrived, fans clustered around food vendors and rugby memorabilia stands outside the gates. It was a lively atmosphere, which we also found replicated on the inside, once we passed through security and climbed the two flights of stairs to our seats. The stadium itself was much bigger than the Athlone soccer stadium and was much more crowded, adding to the excitement and energy of the event. When the game started, that energy was channeled into dynamic cheers, collective oohs-and-ahhs, and several rounds of “the wave”. Two of the people in our group play for the UConn women’s rugby team, and two more of us have played the sport in college at one time or another, so we provided occasional commentary on the rules and calls to the rest of the group during the game. Though the home team took a significant lead in the first half, the Reds came back to miss the victory by just three points, despite countless injuries on both sides. Meanwhile, the mobile vendors that climbed up and down the stadium steps offered treats both familiar (ice cream, cotton candy, water) and bizarre (jerky, doughnuts, hot-chocolate-from-an-insulated-backpack). All eyes were glued to the game until the final whistle sounded, at which point we filed out en masse, and either headed out to a nearby rugby pub or back up Main Rd. towards the house.

18 Feb 2009 – Guitar

It was a long and complicated journey to procure the Encore guitar that now resides in the corner of my room at 10 Loch Rd. It’s been weeks of phone calls and classified ad-sifting, numerous emails returned or ignored, hunting for music shops on foot and online, and on more than one occasion, walking up to people carrying guitars on the street and inquiring about the origins of their instruments. Given the accessibility of most other items and information in Cape Town, one would expect to be able to find a cheap acoustic guitar after a month of diligent searching, but it seemed whenever I got close to purchasing a guitar – usually through gumtree.com, a South African ad site in the vein of craigslist – something prevented the transaction from taking place. First it was a miscommunication with a potential seller, then I was trumped by someone’s better offer, and most recently, it was an issue of transportation to the pick-up location that nixed the deal.

Over the past few weeks I’d cycled through periods of lost-faith in classified ads or in musical instrument retailers, but I always wound up back online sending off increasingly more desperate emails to track down a cheap guitar. So on Monday, when I found four feasible ads on a Cape Town classifieds site, I jotted down the contact information and called them all on my lunch break. Predictably, two had already been sold, and one could not be reached by phone. But the fourth guitar, as it turned out, was still for sale, though the seller wanted to assure me that the price had been misquoted on the website. Ordinarily I would have been put off by the threefold price increase, but because the total still came in under 50 USD, I knew I couldn’t pass it up. I told the man over the phone that I would contact him again on Tuesday – by which time he promised the instrument would have new strings and be fully playable – to determine a time and place to meet.

I called again during Tuesday’s lunch break, and over the din of traffic and honking horns, I managed to get the man’s address and arranged to meet him in the suburb of Parow around 6pm. Having executed the details of the transaction in the wrong order, I spent much of the afternoon (between report-writing and research at work) trying to figure out exactly how I would get to Parow that evening. Serendipitously, a pest-control sweep of the Black Sash office sent Cassidy and I home earlier than usual, and by 3:45, we were on a minibus headed for Bellville, about an hour’s ride from Cape Town. I was fairly certain that once we reached the Bellville taxi rank we’d be able to find a local minibus route that would land us in the vicinity of 28 General Henrick Schoemin Rd in Parow.

Hardly one to jump so cavalierly into an unknown or unplanned-out situation, however, I realized how much faith I was putting in the goodness and helpfulness of the people we were going to encounter at the Bellville taxi rank. When we finally got off the minibus, I clutched my rudimentary pencil-drawn map of Parow and set off for the bustling commuter hub down the road. Much like the Cape Town minibus rank, the Bellville terminal was filled with Golden Arrow buses, minibus taxis, and dozens of independent food and knick-knack vendors beneath the arched metal canopy. People walked and loitered everywhere, and as white, American young women, we were easy targets for hawkers as we wandered around asking for directions. We collected quite a following as we went from one person to the next, asking if they could point us in the right direction. Time and again I thrust the little white paper at a well-meaning man or woman, indicating the address and the general location of our destination on the barely-legible “map”, but each one ushered us in the direction of someone else. It took about half an hour before a security guard suggested we call the man with the guitar and ask him what to do, and thankfully, the man offered to meet us at the taxi rank on his way home from Durbanville.

It was the middle of rush hour, so Cassidy and I stood by the roadside looking for the “Black Audi with license plate CY 23…” for another 45 minutes before the man called back and told us he had arrived but didn’t know where we were. More time frittered away as we stumbled around the taxi rank and surrounding commuter zones - one hand pressed the cell phone to my right ear, the other plugged my left ear as I shouted descriptions of where we were over the cacophony of rush hour traffic. It was a glorious moment when we spotted the white-haired man at the corner of a parking lot, waving his arms in the air.

He greeted us apologetically – we never got his name – and pulled a half-size guitar from the back of his shiny black sedan. I inadvertently gaped for a moment, trapped between disappointment over the apparent quality (and size), and sheer excitement over finally finding the long-sought after instrument. He told us he’d just finished having it restrung and that it was just missing a lower bridge. But its fully functional, he insisted. I gave it a few strums, and when I’d determined it was playable, I handed over the 450 Rand. If I’d been a little less flustered, I might have thought to bargain him down a little, but I was just happy to have the guitar in hand as we walked back towards the minibuses a few minutes later. By then, finding the Mowbray line to take back to Red Cross Hospital was inconsequential, and feeling rather accomplished, we rode the 40 minutes back towards Rondebosch with the sun sinking low behind Table Mountain.
We had an hour-long house meeting, but the rest of the night I spent playing the “baby” guitar in the pool house, joined periodically by other people passing through or stopping by to sing along. The music lasted until sometime after 11pm, when most people headed to bed.

17 Feb 2009 – Ajax Game & Threats of More Strikes

This weekend was not as packed with activities as our previous weekends in Cape Town. Some small groups took trips to the beach, Long Street, braai’s with new friends and coworkers, and sand-boarding on the dunes just outside of the city. But most of us spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday at 10 Loch Rd. We filled the relaxed weekend hours with movies and homework, or lounged by the pool, which – temporarily, anyway – does not resemble a bog. The weather was pleasant, as always, with the wind picking up a bit more than usual at night.

We’d bought tickets earlier in the week for a soccer match between one of the local club teams, Ajax, and Amazulu of Durban, on Saturday evening. So eight of us took the five-minute trip up the road to the stadium just before 6PM and proceeded to watch the 90-minute game come to a slightly disappointing 0-0 draw.

On the drive in, we saw the careening arches of the stadium from several blocks away, and then noticed the cranes and construction equipment that were heaped around the site as we walked to the front gates. The security surrounding the event was minimal, as were the crowds, so we didn’t have to wait very long to get inside, where we realized about half of the stadium was still under construction for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Athlone Stadium will be only a practice field, but the Cup organizers have decided to add rows and rows of seating on the end-line sides of the arena, nonetheless. It was hardly a sold-out crowd, so we found good seats in the second tier near the center of the field (our tickets didn’t specify seating) and prepared to watch the game with about 500 or more other fans.

Walking into the stadium, we’d been greeted by the billowing echo of horns, the harmonic chants of dozens of Ajax fans, which continued throughout the game and escalated in proportion to the ball’s proximity to the goal. Most of the stadium wore red for the home-team, and we sat in front of a group of veteran fans that shouted and narrated their way through the entire game. The atmosphere was much as I would have expected in a country where soccer is more than just a niche sport. The crowd, however, might have been larger if there had not been a Super 14 rugby match going on simultaneously about twenty minutes away.

There were two very notable aspects of the event, however, that I would not have anticipated if I had not been forewarned. First, the crowds at South African soccer games are notorious for producing marijuana clouds so thick that even passive fans begin to feel its effects. And second, the half-time entertainment often consists of up-and-coming local singers and musical groups essentially singing karaoke through a meager set of box speakers on the side of the pitch.

Fortunately, the latter proved more accurate than the former, on Saturday evening. Though we were certainly engulfed in the acrid odor of smoke throughout much of the game, the whipping wind did a fair job clearing the air, and the sources of the smoke were too discrete to identify amongst a crowd otherwise filled with everyday cigarette smokers. The half-time “show” began with a young pop-singer who performed abbreviated renditions of “It’s in His Kiss” and other old hits, to which we couldn’t help but goofily sing along. She was followed by a trio of local rappers, who looked every bit the part of an American rap group with their sagging jeans, oversized caps, and aggressive dance moves. For some reason, their performance evoked shrieks of excitement from the clusters of preteen girls in our section. It also generated a considerable amount of amused laughter from our row.

With ten minutes left in the second half, the darkness had brought with it a surprising cold that cut through our sweatshirts and numbed our flip-flopped feet. The lack of scoring had steadily detracted from the otherwise exciting atmosphere (the horns continued to echo around the stadium), until a few close shots brought the level of energy back up in the crowd. The final five minutes were filled with corner kicks, cheering, and near misses that sent cries of disappointment shooting across the stadium. Despite the scoreless draw, the excitement held out until the final whistle.

We shuffled out with the crowd around 7:45 and meandered to the road in the dim light that still lingered over Table Mountain (still visible from Athlone). Bracing against the chilly wind, we walked about five minutes in the direction of the house before a minibus pulled up beside us and took us the rest of the way to Red Cross Hospital. We were the only passengers on the family-owned minibus, and during the brief ride, several people carried on a pleasant conversation with a woman who was presumably the driver’s wife.

Monday we all returned to our internships, which for Cassidy and me meant researching and attending meetings on Plein St. with Black Sash. During the day, however, we overheard several reports that the minibus taxi strike was expected to resume in Cape Town on Tuesday. The reports varied widely depending on the sources, but by the time we left the office for the day, we’d been convinced that a strike at least on par with one last week would take place the following day. On the ride home, our minibus driver turned up the radio when the commentator launched into a news story about the anticipated strike, putting us in the ironic position of sitting in the presence of the very people about whom the radio voice was talking. When the story concluded, we asked the money-handler whether or not the strike would happen, and he suggested (without confirming it outright) that something would occur the next day.

The rumors drove the house to convene in an impromptu meeting in the common room around dinner time, where Ben sorted out the strike-day commuting procedures for each internship group. The routine may soon become second nature, given the ongoing struggle between the NTA (the unofficial National Taxi Association) and the Golden Arrow bus company. Because of the expected violence in the townships, several students would not be visiting their internships on Tuesday, and others would be taking the trains or receiving rides from prescheduled drivers. If we found that there was any merit to the threats of violence against commuters attempting to reach non-minibus forms of transportation, then none of us would attend our internships.

So in a very anticlimactic turn of events, we woke up this morning to discover that the strike had been called off, and everyone had to revert back to their standard commuting routines. The way news filters in – with the absence of television and just one radio in the house – we’ve learned to be very flexible at a moment’s notice, and this morning we got the news through several individual sources and phone calls. The information spread throughout the house as people knocked on bedroom doors or bumped into each other in the kitchens over breakfast. But ultimately, everyone got word and adjusted accordingly, and everyone managed to get in to work as usual. There's been no word on whether the strike will resume later this week.

13 Feb 2009 – The Emma Animal Rescue Society (TEARS)

Class Day Thursday included a very hot walk to campus and a series of group presentations on parts of the South African Constitution. Our second class also had a guest speaker from the National Development Association, who spoke to us about social and economic development projects and the role of civil society (NGOs and such) in addressing issues of food security, unemployment, and land restoration. At Marita’s flat for our evening class, we enjoyed another delicious dinner and several hours’ discussion with Molly Blank, Noluyanda Roxwana, and Babalwa Yabo from the documentary film Testing Hope. Molly filmed the documentary – which examines the problems that plague township schools in SA – while visiting the country on a Fulbright scholarship in 2005. We’d viewed the film in our pre-departure class last fall, and meeting the filmmaker and two of the students from the documentary was very affecting. Both of the students are about our age, but growing up in the townships, they have experienced struggles and adversity that have developed in them a striking maturity.

Despite the difficulties they have faced, their messages to us were ones of hope and inspiration, perseverance and possibility. They were engaging public speakers, comfortably and candidly swinging between serious topics like apartheid or Matric exams and playful commentary on their personal lives. It was impossible to walk away from our conversation without a great respect for all they have accomplished (both have found ways to pursue higher education, despite their difficult financial situations) and the attitudes they have maintained towards their futures and their country and communities.


As we spend this semester in South Africa, the Honors in Cape Town program requires that we take part in three specific academic components, two of which are classes and internships. The third is an activist project, which essentially consists of volunteering (usually on Fridays) at a community organization of our choice, and ultimately writing a paper summarizing the organization’s function and our role within it. The minimum time requirement is 12 hours, but most of us will be spending far longer at our chosen locations as we get involved in projects and programs. Our proposals for activist projects were due by this weekend, and many of us struggled during the week to narrow down our dozens of interesting options, deciding at which organizations we’d have the most gratifying or personally relevant experiences.

So this morning, five of us headed off to Fish Hoek (about 50 minutes south by train) to do our first day of our activist projects at the same organization: The Emma Animal Rescue Society. We’d been drawn to TEARS because of the fact that all five of us are devoted animal lovers who’ve spent the majority of the last month missing our respective pets and fretting over the number of stray, starving, and mistreated animals we’ve encountered in the townships. We’d been in touch with the organization earlier in the week to set up our volunteer hours, and they had been more than happy to have us, as they are a no-kill shelter that is constantly expanding its capacity to accommodate new rescues. They have a 24-person staff, but rely heavily on volunteers for daily care and cleaning.We knew the address and the general location of TEARS once we arrived in Fish Hoek, but because of the minibus taxi strike (in its third and final day, today) we weren’t sure exactly how we were going to make the connection from the coastal train station to the inland Lekkerwater Rd compound. In the future, we’ll be able to hop on a minibus right outside the station and take it to our destination, but today we figured we’d stop to get an early lunch along the main stretch of road by the station and ask the waitresses how they’d suggest we travel out of the center of town. Unfortunately, the women from the café told us flatly that we could not head out toward the edge of the townships – where TEARS is located – because of the potential violence from the taxi strikes. The public buses won’t even stop there, right now, they told us, so you can’t go.

Disappointed but not discouraged, we walked down the street to an internet café to get the phone number for TEARS, and then called them to ask what they suggested we do. One of the things we’ve learned during our time in Cape Town is that advice about safety and modes of transportation vary widely depending on the people you talk to. The woman who answered the phone told us someone would come by soon to pick us up, and we graciously thanked her and returned to the train station to wait for the ride. We waited about half an hour outside the dingy cement building until a little red hatchback pulled up a few meters away, an arm waving out the driver’s side window and a column of traffic beeping in front of it – the car had pulled the wrong way down a one way street.

Somehow we managed to fit all of us into the little car for the fifteen minute drive. We parked in a field across the street from the fenced compound, which was situated in a relatively rural area near the edge of several townships and informal settlements, The woman who’d picked us up was quite young and very friendly (she’d asked us all about our impressions of SA and post-Apartheid society on the drive in) and she gave us a quick tour of the place, complete with a stop at the hectic front office, the cattery, and the dog kennel. The appearance – and smell – was very similar to a veterinary hospital, but far livelier and filled with volunteer dog walkers, cleaning/washing staff, and more than a hundred dogs and cats.
After the brief introduction, we were encouraged to simply jump into the midday activity. The puppies and kittens in particular required a lot of personal attention and human contact, so it was suggested that we start there. Four of us headed straight for the puppy pens, and the fifth opted for the kittens in the cattery. The kennel pens had a certain thrown-together look, with chain link and chicken wire fencing jutting at less-than-perfect angles and secured to small, wooden shack-rooms which were furnished with “household” items salvaged from trash heaps. However, this description isn’t to suggest that the facilities were subpar – in fact they were quite well organized, and all of the animals were efficiently tended to – only to paint a picture of the ever-expanding compound.We spent the next three hours surrounded by playful, attention-starved puppies that nipped and jumped and rolled around in the sunny dirt. We made a point to visit each of the pens by 2:00, and though all the dogs had been walked and fed, we did get to watch the staff wash some of the puppies and prepare one dog for surgery. Fortunately, we were not wary of bugs or dirt, since many of the dogs we pet and cuddled were visibly infected with fleas – we just made a bee-line for the shower when we returned home, afterward. We finished the afternoon sitting in the caged walkway in the cattery and providing human-cushions and scratching posts for the dozens of cats that weaved and purred around us.Finding a ride back to the train station was a little tricky, but once again, someone from TEARS was heading out in that direction by car, so we were back to the train around 3:30, and dozed on the ride back to Rondebosch. It had been an exhausting day running around after the animals under the relentless sun, but despite the exhaustion we felt on the twenty minute walk back to the house, none of us could deny that it had been one of the best (and most gratifying) afternoons we’d spent on the trip so far.

11 Feb 2009 – Old Pros at the Parliament Game

It seems each day’s new experiences in this city top the last. Today was our third visit to Parliament with Black Sash, and as one of our coworkers put it, we spent the afternoon “hobnobbing” with some of the nation’s most influential and recognized faces. (A bit of an overstatement.) The Minister of Finance delivered the Budget Address this afternoon, which brought in many of the same VIPs as last week’s State of the Nation, except this time we had tickets.

We left the Black Sash building a little after twelve, with lots of mingling and observing ahead of us during the afternoon. Some of the office staff had also given us one pre-arranged task: when the official documents from the event became available to the public at 2:30, Cassidy and I had to collect them and bring them back to the Black Sash office. This wouldn’t appear to be a burdensome job, except that it involved moving between three layers of Parliament security and transporting two big boxes of heavy documents down six city blocks. So between 12:15 and 12:30PM on Wednesday, if anyone in Cape Town overheard a strange, squeaky rattling sound echoing up Plein St, the offender was a rickety, old “trolley” (hand-truck) dragged along the uneven sidewalk on its way to Parliament.

When we arrived, we moved through the security lines fairly quickly, despite awkwardly maneuvering the clunky trolley through metal detectors and busy passageways. The security personnel escorted us in and around several buildings on the edge of the Parliament grounds, trying to locate a place for us to stash the trolley and contact the department that would be holding our documents two hours later. At one point, while we paused outside one of the media rooms, we were caught up in a flurry of activity when a swarm of black-suited men threw open a nearby door and swept passed, curtly demanding that we step back. Only after we’d started moving on to another destination did Nyembezi inform us that we’d just nearly bumped into the man of the hour, the Minister of Finance.

It’s no surprise that we spent most of the afternoon doing double takes and wondering how we got so lucky as to be able to roam the Parliament courtyard freely during the 1.5hr (indoor) address. Nyembezi seemed to know everyone we passed, members of the ANC, radio and TV interviewers from SABC and CNBC Africa, and just about every NGO represented at the event. For the hour and half before the address began, we mingled with the press in their booths and tech tents in front of Parliament, as Nyembezi set up pre- and post-event interviews. We kept retreating to the shaded steps of the building, often in the line of the dozens of video and paparazzi cameras, while convoys of official vehicles rolled in to dispense their VIPS. My camera had a very low battery, so I resorted to taking photos with Nyembezi’s camera about half way through the afternoon.

Nyembezi did two television interviews for the national nightly news, and then two radio interviews – one in English, one in Xhosa – for the Black Sash before the budget address began. Though we had tickets to see the event on a big projector screen in the auxiliary viewing gallery, we decided to hang around outside one of the press tents and listen to the speech from there. We wound up finding space in the radio tent, squeezing in between the ring of switchboards and donning headphones to listen to the first twenty minutes of the address.

We were on our own for the document-acquisition at 2:30, but Cassidy and I were feeling unexpectedly confident and capable as we walked and talked our way through various checkpoints to get to the necessary departments. The walk back to Black Sash with the loaded trolley eroded much of that confident maturity, however, as we descended into fits of discomfited laughter whenever the lop-sided old cart jammed on the curb or veered into unsuspecting passersby. We arrived at the Black Sash office twenty minutes later feeling as though we’d just completed a bizarre challenge in The Amazing Race.

We had a few minutes to collect ourselves and rehydrate before heading back out up the street to join Nyembezi for the post-event media circus. The address was still in progress when we arrived, so rather than return to the stuffy radio tent, we opted to recline in the shade on the Parliament steps until it concluded. Wired reporters and black-clothed tech-assistants scurried around the courtyard a few meters away, but no one questioned our authority to be where we were, so we relaxed in the oddly tranquil space, before the rush of diplomats and business people flooded out of the heavy front doors at 3:20. The steps were jammed with press and politicians within minutes – formally-dressed men and women queued or clumped around news cameras and radio microphones. There was shouting and laughter, whistles of attention and waves to silence the escalating noise level in the crowd. Nyembezi sent us on various errands to deliver messages to network interview coordinators and friends of Black Sash, and he did a few more interviews, as well as a meet-and-greet with a high-level ANC commissioner.

Though we hardly blended in with the crowd, Cassidy and I managed to jump into the fray of photographers to capture pictures and glimpses of what seemed to be the most esteemed guests. The rapid staccato of camera flashes around one individual was so enticing that I wriggled into the pack of microphone-wielding reporters and zoom lenses to snap a close-up shot of my own. Then upon reporting back to Nyembezi (I took the photo with his camera), I discovered I’d just been standing within an arm’s length of ANC president Jacob Zuma. (See earlier posts for more information on Zuma.) I hope to get a copy of that picture soon.

Finally, around 4:15, the Black Sash had made all of its necessary contacts and statements. The organization had supported some elements of the budget proposal, but felt it did not do enough to address certain aspects of poverty and unemployment, which continue to oppress millions of people in South Africa. We were among the last to leave the Parliament steps after the event, and the news crews were already packing up their equipment and breaking down the tents. It had been yet another overwhelming and exciting day on the forefront of national politics and another example of how interesting a time it is for us to be in Cape Town, South Africa.

Note: Wednesday also was marked by the beginning of a 3-day minibus taxi strike, which has led to violence and transportation problems in many of the townships around Cape Town. Buses and trains helped to keep the city and its suburbs moving relatively smoothly, despite the strike, but past taxi strikes have touched off episodes of serious violence and unrest. More on the strike and its causes/effects to come…

10 Feb 2009 – Bo-Kaap and Spontaneous Trips to Parliament

On Sunday most of us chose to visit the historic, traditionally Muslim community of Bo-Kaap on the side of Signal Hill. The area is known for its colorful homes and buildings, its delicious Malay cuisine, and its rich cultural history. We took a minibus into the city with the intention of walking up to Bo-Kaap, but given how our group of eleven monopolized the minibus, our driver offered to take us up there, himself, for an extra 5 Rand a piece. He replaced his Mitchell’s Plain sign with “Special Hire”, and drove us out of the CBD to the scenic hillside community. As the motor revved and the minibus tilted sharply backwards up the hill, we realized how much we’d miscalculated the degree of walking difficulty. We’d been fortunate to get a ride to the (almost) top.As it was early Sunday afternoon, the colorful streets of Bo-Kaap were largely empty and quiet, except for little children loitering in the shade of a building and women hanging laundry on the lines. We walked several blocks along the ridge, and then decided to take Ben’s advice on a restaurant and climb a very steep hill to the highest point in the neighborhood, to eat at The Noon Gun (which is named for the cannon on Signal Hill that is fired everyday at noon). It was a hot and laborious trek to the stucco building at the top of Longmarket St., and so we were more than a little disgruntled to find that the restaurant is closed on Sundays.Thankfully, the owners noticed us waiting outside, and opened the door to let us purchase beverages. We spent about twenty minutes enjoying the view of the harbor, the city, and the mountain from the look-out by the restaurant, and then headed down into the city for lunch at a café near the outdoor market on St. George’s Mall.

Monday morning Cassidy and I were back at Black Sash, working on the State of the Nation project until lunch time. We’d gotten word that we might be running to Parliament on Wednesday to pick up documents related to the Budget Address that will be delivered that afternoon, and we handed over our IDs to be copied and sent to the necessary security personnel. But throughout the morning, we began to realize (through dribs and drabs of information we overheard) that something important was planned for Monday afternoon.

I suppose it is not uncommon in an internship to find oneself out of the loop – or at least missing relevant background information – a great deal of the time. Working in a new environment, with issues and networks of people that are unfamiliar, it can be hard to figure out the tasks and projects everyone else is involved in around the office. The Black Sash has done a wonderful job accommodating us and incorporating our skills and desire to help into their current projects, but because of the pace and multidimensionality of the workday, we often aren’t entirely informed about the schedule of any given day.

And so the sudden invitation to accompany Nyembezi, the National Advocacy Programme Manager, to a public Parliamentary session came as a huge surprise. Just after lunch, Nyembezi told us to grab our IDs and cameras and follow him up the street to the building we’d just spent half of Friday gawking at through wrought iron gates. Wide-eyed and grinning, we shuffled after him, all the way to the security desk at the public entrance of Parliament. We moved through two security checks and across a cobblestone court before we arrived at the entrance to the Old Chamber, the room used to hold official Parliament sessions until 1983. The building was completed in 1885, and it was grand and ornate with its Corinthian porticos and pavilions. Nyembezi seemed to know every person we passed, and introduced us to several government officials, including the CEO of the South African Independent Electoral Commission, Pansy Tlakula.

We had a chance to walk around the Old Chamber for several minutes before the green leather seats filled in with men in business suits and women in bold-printed dresses. No one gave us explicit instruction, so there were many moments of confused standing, smiling, and nodding brightly at various diplomats and civil servants who greeted us or talked around us to one another. Political schmoozing in a foreign Parliament is disorienting enough, even without the complication of the language barrier.We were allowed to sit right on the main floor because the session was not very crowded, and we sipped our complementary guava juice as the meeting was called into session. The topic of the public session was the recent provincial re-demarcation issue in Gauteng and North West provinces. South Africa has 9 provinces (most closely compared to US states) and 283 municipalities (most closely compared to US counties). Under the 1996 Constitution, the South African government cannot re-demarcate the borders of a province or municipality without consulting the affected communities, first. But the border between the wealthy, developed Gauteng Province and the rural North West Province has recently been re-demarcated and disputed, especially in terms of the economic and electoral impacts on affected municipalities.
The session started a bit after 2PM, and ran about two hours, towards the end of which, Nyembezi gave a five minute speech on behalf of the Black Sash. We did our best to stay attentive throughout the meeting, despite the fact that even some of the diplomats in attendance were nodding off. Nevertheless, having the chance to listen to members of the national government and civil organizations discuss efforts to prevent community protests and sort out re-demarcation voting concerns was enlightening and perspective-altering. The most striking part of the session was that even despite the formal setting and the gravity of the issues discussed, there remained a sense of joviality in the proceedings. On more than one occasion, a far-reaching remark by one speaker was followed by a room full of hearty chuckles, which were infectious enough to spark our own laughter, even though we didn’t fully understand the comedy of the situation.

8 Feb 2009 – Thunderstorm

After the week of internships, classes, and exciting national events, several of us opted to stay at the house on Saturday as the rest of the group headed for Muizenberg. We spent the morning and afternoon working on homework assignments, loads of laundry, and catching up on sleep and emails. In the evening, Emily Anderson and I walked to Pick N’ Pay on Main Rd. for a few groceries.

We left a little after 6:30, with the unusually overcast sky only just showing signs of the approaching sunset. Ordinarily, we would have had no trouble walking the 25 minutes to the store, grabbing our groceries, and returning before it was too dark. But as we started back towards the house at 7:30, the dark clouds had rolled in and were rumbling ominously overhead. Heavy raindrops started pelting us as we neared the Commons, and we grumbled about wet groceries and soggy clothes as we continued to walk.

And then the lightening cracked.

It took a few more minutes for the storm to really set in overhead, but suddenly we realized we were fifteen minutes from home and facing a broad expanse of open grassland, with thunder and lightening crashing relentlessly around us. There were no shops to duck into, no cabs to be hailed. Even if we called someone from our cell phones, there was nothing they’d be able to do to help. So we charted the most cautious course possible, squinting through the downpour and sloshing hurriedly along the flooding sidewalk at the edge of the Commons. Lightening zigzagged towards the ground unsettlingly close to us, and it flashed overhead so rapidly that it seemed we were trying to navigate around the edge of the field by strobe light. There were few tall trees or structures around us, even on the periphery of the Commons, but we managed to reach the far side safely about ten minutes later, soaked and mildly shaken. We dashed across the puddled street, trying not to shriek as bolts lit up the field on our left. The damp air smelled faintly charred.

By the time we finally came to the front gate of the house, the rain had eased to a steady shower, and the thunder and lightening were a bit less intense. We stood dripping in the foyer for a moment, collecting ourselves and taking stock of our mud-spattered clothes and sodden cloth grocery bags. Our slightly-dazed expressions made for a humorous picture opportunity, and the eventful walk home will surely remain a vivid memory of our time in Cape Town.

6 February 2009 – Parliament Opens

Today was a day unparalleled by any other we’ve spent in Cape Town. It was a day of political grandeur and social activism, of traditional formality and radical demonstration. For every official ceremony that took place at or around Parliament, there seemed to be an organized activist event somewhere else in the city to balance it out – and so it was a day of intriguing dichotomies. Adding to the excitement were our group’s various connections to these events, and our individual involvement in the social and political activities that took place throughout the morning and afternoon.

On assignment from Black Sash, Cassidy and I had to meet other members of the organization at the front gate of Parliament a little after twelve o’clock, so we decided to head into town in the morning to catch some of the fanfare preceding the interim president’s State of the Nation address. The bus and minibus stations were eerily quiet and empty when we arrived around 9:45, but as we made our way up Plein St. past the Black Sash office, the streets began to fill with business people and curious Capetonians, many of whom were interested in watching the marching bands and motorcades heading to Parliament.

The security was very tight, so the roads were blockaded to give the motorcade route at least a one-block buffer. Onlookers wound up leaning over the crowd-control fences at certain intersections and peering down long avenues filled with police and military units just to get a glimpse of the government vehicles that passed. Unlike similar events in the United States, the procession was not very organized or constant. The police in charge of keeping the small crowds of interested citizens at bay seemed almost as unsure about the progression of events as we did. In retrospect, the police presence was rather overwhelming all morning and afternoon, as the aloof, uniformed men and women hovered in groups on all of the corners, ever vigilant in the way they scoped the crowds with shrewd eyes. More than once I was asked to please step back or told that I didn’t have the authorization to take a photo from a certain spot. It was clear by their influence over the crowds, however, that their authority was not quite equivalent to that of American police.

After an hour along one of the street barricades, we had seen just a few small factions of Parliament-bound cars and marchers. Today was indisputably the hottest day we’ve encountered since we arrived (and surprisingly wind-less) so when the sun crept around the corner of the building at our back, we decided to keep moving up the street towards Parliament to find a some more shade and a new viewing location. Cars that had peeled of the stunted motorcades continued to pass us on the otherwise blocked-off street, and we were struck by the fact that most of these vans and armored cars were Mercedes and BMWs, despite their rather nondescript appearance.

Cassidy and I stopped in a corner café for water, already dripping with sweat beneath our too-large Black Sash t-shirts and jeans. Then we walked the rest of the way to the front side of the Parliament building, where we just happened to run into three other members of our group, sitting on the curb in the sectioned-off viewing area, across the street. We watched and listened – through the black bars of the gate and throngs of people on the other side – as the band played the national anthem, the cannons blasted something similar to the 21-gun salute, and five fighter jets tore through the sky overhead. It was certainly a thrilling few minutes of formal introduction to Parliament. But it was followed shortly after by the disbanding of the guard and marching bands and the progression of any lingering diplomats into the building for the closed-door presidential address.
At that point, Cassidy and I headed up the street again to see if we could intercept the Arms March protestors, who’d begun the trek to Roeland St around 11AM. It was nearly noon, so we were not surprised to find the 500 or so marchers standing about five blocks from Parliament (they weren’t allowed to approach any further), roped into a very specific area by police tape and listening with rapt attention to the Social Justice Coalition’s (SJC) speakers as they denounced the misuse of government funds on an arms deal. The SJC had organized the event over the past few weeks to address government corruption and expenditures arms, as health and civil service programs in the townships remain incredibly underfunded. Dan is interning at the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which helped to organize the march/rally with the SJC, and he had a hand in organizing the event. Accordingly, about half our group of 15 attended the march, wielding their large, home-made signs and enthusiastically joining in the chanting and singing that took place during the roughly two-hour event.
Having never before attended a protest, my only real frames of reference were movies and documentaries about American social movements during the ‘60s and ‘70s. I expected lots of vigorous cheering and chanting, people packed shoulder to shoulder waving banners and wearing shirts with radical slogans, and coordinators standing on soap boxes shouting morale-boosting, revolutionary indictments against the government.
Surprisingly, the scene we encountered (and briefly joined), matched this description almost perfectly, except that instead of a soap box, the coordinators perched on the back of a flatbed truck at the roadside, with a microphone and stacks of clunky speakers projecting their rally cries all the way up Roeland St.
It really seemed to be the epitome of a South African grass-roots rally.

We spent about twenty minutes with Dan and the other five or six students who’d marched – once again having run into them effortlessly, without any plans to meet up. Despite our group’s involvement in many of the biggest organized events of the day, it was still very bizarre to run into familiar faces everywhere we went in the city. Additionally, wherever Cassidy and I walked, our Black Sash t-shirts attracted a lot of attention and affirming exclamations. (We’ve heard that the same was true of the SJC Arms Protest shirts that the marchers wore.) Our shirts also helped three different members of the Black Sash staff identify and approach us on the streets around Parliament throughout the morning.
At 12:30, we walked back to Parliament, where security was even more heightened as the ceremony came to a close. A half dozen coach buses now blocked the pedestrian view of the Parliament gate and wide courtyard area, which was bisected by a long red carpet and dotted with camera equipment and security personnel. Our directions for meeting up and gaining entrance to the post-address press event had been very minimal, so we were left to our own devices to try to get as close to the action as possible. There seemed to be several levels of press and Parliamentary access, at the core of which lay the Parliament steps, riddled with schmoozing diplomats. Just outside of that was a buffer zone through which only select security and press passed, followed by a ring of lesser security, press, and civil service reps. Then came the big iron gate and the small entry zone, in which police and a few more photographers clustered, lining the path between the Parliament property and the coach buses. Through this channel, dozens and dozens of diplomats and dignitaries made their exits, striding nobly past in their striking African dress.The farthest we could talk our way into these rings of security was just beyond the buses and police in the entry area. It was clear that without specific ID or the help of our Black Sash contacts inside the event area, we wouldn’t be getting inside the main gate. So for about an hour, we stood amongst the “lesser” security and press, watching VIPs filter past in garments ranging from common Western suits to vibrantly printed African wrap-dresses and broad, feathery hats. All of this was set against the backdrop of the white pillared, European-style Parliament building, and framed by the granite cliffs of Signal Hill, Lion’s Head, and Table Mountain. For the umpteenth time – even the pictures won’t do it justice.

Around 1:15, most of the Parliament courtyard had emptied out, and the security had dwindled a bit, so we decided to make a calculated approach to the gate. Just inside, we spotted one of our Black Sash “coworkers”, Nyembezi, who beckoned us closer to the red carpet and Parliament steps. Appropriately hesitant, we skittered past a few more rows of police and press, and spent the next few minutes taking photos for the Black Sash website and talking with a few photographers and Black Sash staff. Nyembezi had had tickets to see the State of the Nation, and he explained how the event had transpired, and how the organization deals with giving press statements and official responses after addresses like these. Simply being so close to such a big event – regardless of the fact that it was in its final stages of conclusion, by that time – was both very powerful and slightly bizarre.In the hours since, it’s dawned on me how significant an opportunity it was to have been able to experience a major national event from such a unique perspective. It’s also made me further appreciate how fortunate we are to have such strong and influential connections here in Cape Town.