The cold rain that fell steadily on Saturday confined most of us to the house, either packing or finding ways to pretend it was not our last full day in Cape Town. Some people did brave the weather to head into town or to the Laundromat, the latter of which was a must-stop for anyone who’s laundry had not yet dried on the line (indoors or out) because of the wet weather. Packing wet clothes for an international flight was trouble we’d rather avoid.
By Saturday night, the election results had been finalized: Zuma’s ANC took 65.9% of the national vote with a 77% voter turnout across the country. The DA won 16% of the vote, Cope won 7.4%, and the other 24 parties running in the national election all won smaller percentages. The DA won more than half of the Western Cape, so for the first time, the ANC has neither two-thirds of the seats in Parliament nor the claim that it represents all regions South Africa.
(And as I’ve finally tracked down the photo I captured months ago on the steps of Parliament with my supervisor’s camera… here is a picture of South Africa’s next president.)
For our last day in South Africa, the weather fortunately turned in out favor. As we ran about the house packing, cleaning, and stuffing bags full of clothes and items to donate, there was a palpable feeling of resignedness within the group. A few of us ran out for very last minute items or for a final jog around the Commons, but generally, the hours between 9 and 5 saw the fifteen residents of 10 Loch Rd neatly folding up and packing away the last four months of their lives in Africa. We also did our best to check the list of items to return things to the proper places in kitchen drawers and bedrooms, and we cooked as much of the leftover food as possible. At six o’clock, we gathered in the upstairs Common Room with Ben for a final house meeting before leaving, and we did our best to vocalize our thanks and appreciation for all he’s done the last four months as both our RA and our friend. Naturally, the room dissolved into tears and sniffles as we shuffled back downstairs and lugged our suitcases out through the gates to Parks and the waiting van. We loaded the trailer, and then, now devoid of our South African keys and cell phones, waited outside in relative silence for the twenty minutes it took for Ben to fetch Marita and her luggage and meet us. The cool air and dusky light made the moment all the more nostalgic as we gazed wistfully back at the sliver of house that we could still see over the cement wall. We took turns saying goodbye to Parks as we waited.I’d decided to take my chances getting the baby guitar on the plane as a carry-on item, so I had the instrument in hand as we waited. Jordan was also planning to carry on her bongo, and Dan decided to pull out his harmonica, so between the three of us, we were bound to look like a traveling band once we reached the airport. Vernon and Esmé were waiting to bid us farewell at the international terminal, where we congregated in the entryway with our loads of luggage and rather forlorn expressions. Emily G and Steph Y are staying in the country a few more weeks, and the tearful goodbyes continued until we had to move on through the passengers-only gate to check in. We checked our luggage without any trouble, despite fears that many of the bags would be overweight and call for hefty fines, and then we said our last goodbye to Ben at the foot of the escalator to our gate. Having been together for months, leaving pieces of our group behind felt like abandoning parts of ourselves; it was both sad and surreal.We had several hours to kill in the airport, so most of us had dinner at a café in the terminal. A few people contemplated accepting an offer to take a flight the following night because of over-booking on our plane, but in the end, we all boarded the KLM flight around 10:30. Shortly thereafter, the thirteen of us and Marita bid South Africa its final farewell as we took off on the first leg of our 22-hour trip back to the United States. ...
Thank you all for following the blog over the last four months. It’s been a great way to keep people up to date with our adventures and experiences in South Africa this semester, and I’m happy to have been able to share these things with you from halfway around the world. For more pictures from the trip, don’t forget to check out the link to the "SA Flickr Album" on the upper right hand side of this page.
Thursday morning we took our final exam in Vincent’s class between 9:30 and noon, and then ran through our first complete version of the trip symposium presentation at 1:00 for Vernon, Vincent, Ben, and Marita. The presentation was about an hour long and included over 400 slides of pictures to help us tell the story of our time and work abroad in South Africa, as well as a bit about the country’s history. The trial run of the symposium was largely successful, and we were happy to have been able to debut the presentation in the company of those who contributed so much to our experience in Cape Town. We concluded our final class in South Africa with three individual presentations that tied into Marita’s “Race, Class, and Gender in the Global Prospective” course, and then departed UCT around 3:30.
Thunder had rumbled all through the presentations, but the downpour had been confined to the hours we were in class, so we walked the 45 minutes back to Loch Rd without getting very wet. Many people took the free-afternoon opportunity to hop a minibus into the city, while others caught up on much-needed sleep. In the evening we worked on posters for the Farewell Dinner the following evening. With just a few meals left at the house, we’ve been working on cleaning out the cupboards, so our lunches and dinners have grown increasingly inventive (read: bizarre). For an hour before bed, I sat doodling at the dining room table, munching on dry pasta, semi-stale crackers, and mixed berry jam as Juli worked on a very crafty thank you poster for Thandokhulu.
Every day that we’ve woken to dismal skies and rain tapping against the window pains, we’ve all remarked on the aptness of the change in weather. We can’t seem to help personifying the climate and finding our own droll explanations for the rain: “Cape Town is already mourning our departure”, “Cape Town is forcibly trying to expel us with unpleasant weather”, “Cape Town knows how to effectively mirror the emotional state of 10 Loch Rd”, and on and on. But honestly, the change from summer heat and sun to the present conditions seemed as abrupt as flipping a light switch. Over the last two weeks we’ve considered it a treat to see even a shred of sunlight break through the dank, overcast blanket that has atmospherically muted the whole of Cape Town. It does seem rather fitting. (In retrospect, I realize that I’ve devoted an inordinate portion of this blog to the weather, and I can only assume that this has been due to something I mentioned in the first post back in January. The geography of this place – the scale of visible distances, the vastness of the African sky, our inevitable personal connections to the landscape – makes the weather a central force that has affected the tone of every single day.)
On Friday, Michelle and I bundled in long layers and walked to the train station for our last trip to Fish Hoek. We walked dogs along that familiar stretch of road near Masiphumelele Township until almost noon, and then spent almost an hour in the puppy pens before walking back to pick up the minibus. Despite the muddy (and malodorous) state of our clothes, we stopped for a quick lunch at the same café we visited during our first trip to Fish Hoek three months ago (we’ve all been particularly cognizant of the “full-circle” thing), and then took the train back to Rondebosch. Much of the house had spent the morning in Kalk Bay or Town doing last minute souvenir shopping, and people returned in the late afternoon to prepare for the night’s big Farewell/Thank You Dinner at the St. George’s Hotel in Cape Town.
Park’s arrived to pick us up around 6:30, and we drove the dark, eerily foggy trip into the city in relative silence. Everyone was dressed up for the event, which brought our internship supervisors, our professors, and our group of fifteen together for a final dinner. We hung our thank you posters on the walls around the rented hall when we arrived, and greeted our guests hanging around the room’s many fancily decked tables. Between 7PM and 12AM, there were several formal speeches, a buffet meal, lots of mingling and networking, and a fair amount of dancing. A few people did karaoke renditions of classic songs when the DJ could figure out how to get the equipment working, but the last three hours of the event were mostly filled with dancing, talking, and taking pictures with coworkers and friends. There also were a number of tear-inducing goodbyes – particularly those with our professors – before we left the hotel at midnight. A handful of students stayed out in Cape Town, but the rest of us rode home with Parks, sufficiently exhausted after the big night.Saturday and Sunday we will be tying up all the loose ends at 10 Loch Rd and making last minute trips to places in the townships and the city. We’ll be leaving for the airport at 5PM Sunday afternoon.
The streets all over Cape Town’s city center were overtaken by political marches and motorcades on Tuesday, our last day of internships and the day before the presidential election in South Africa. While wrapping up projects at the Black Sash all morning, we listened to the chanting and singing echoing down Plein St below our fourth story office. Monday was devoted to similar end-of-internship tasks during the day and end-of-term assignments and studying during the evening, but Tuesday and Wednesday were more remarkable because of their significance to our group and the country, respectively.
Over lunch on Tuesday, Cassidy and I finally had the justification to buy a full-sized chocolate cake from Charly’s Bakery, our midday, midweek mainstay over the past three and a half months. Just after noon, we walked back to the office with the big pink and white cake box, and arrived to find that the office had put together a farewell lunch, celebrating both the end of our internship and the departure of two other staff members for other positions. The entire national office staff gathered around the long table in the kitchen, and after a few formal farewell speeches, we passed around platters of chicken, salad, quiche, and eventually, the Charly’s cake. As many people pointed out, the decadent chocolate confection was almost too pretty to eat. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the National Advocacy Office, as usual, sharing photos and relevant documents with our supervisors and talking about the next day’s events. Black Sash will be teaming up with the Electoral Monitoring Network, where Kevin has been interning for the last several weeks, to help observe at the polls as people vote. The organization will also travel all over the Western Cape giving press statements about socioeconomic policy and voter turnout.
This morning, as South Africans flocked to the polls in the damp, chilly weather, most of 10 Loch Rd remained bundled in blankets and sweats, poring over notes for the Politics of South Africa final exam the next day. Between studying, writing the last of our papers, and making additions to our slides for the trip symposium presentation, we spent most of the day in quiet corners of the house, reaching a level of productivity greater than any the house has yet seen. From time to time we logged onto BBC and other local news sites to keep track of Election Day stories, and Kevin and Jordan (who is interning with the Independent Electoral Commission) spent the day working directly with election officials, organizing incoming data or traveling between polling centers. During a brief afternoon run along the streets near the Commons, I passed a polling station at a local school, where the line of voters wound out the door and around the fence at the edge of the property. No fewer than five police cars roared up the street to the school as I jogged by, and before I turned the corner and lost sight of them, I saw a half dozen policemen jump out of the cars and drag a man out of a pickup truck blocking the road by the polls entrance. I did not want to be caught up in the scene, so I continued my run, but the situation was certainly perplexing.
The polls were slated to close at 9PM, but anyone still in line to vote at that time was allowed to do so. Given that none of the ballots are electronically scanned, the results of the election will trickle in over the next several days, but even so, the outcome of the national election is fairly certain. The ANC will win a majority of the national vote, but for the first time, may not achieve the two-thirds majority it has enjoyed in Parliament for the last fifteen years. If it does not hold two-thirds of the seats, then the party will no longer have the power to single-handedly make Constitutional changes, and as many members of civil society have pointed out, this will strengthen South Africa’s democracy. Additionally, the ANC may not win the presidential vote in all seven provinces, as it has in the last two elections, and in such a case, the party will no longer be able to declare that it represents all parts of South Africa. The Western Cape – routinely the outlier province in political affairs – is expecting a strong showing for the DA (Democratic Alliance), the traditionally white and Afrikaans party led by Cape Town’s mayor, Helen Zille. Of course, it has yet to be seen how much of the opposition vote will go to smaller parties like the ID, UDM, IFP, and the recently formed (and some say “trendy”) ANC splinter party, Congress of the People (COPE).
One thing we do know, however, is that the election season that culminated in today’s vote has been mercifully free of widespread violence or unrest. We all hope that the calm atmosphere sustains even as the parties and their supporters learn of the election results later this week.
It’s a shame these two things had to arrive together, but I suppose that’s what we get for scheduling our big, house braai after the change in season. Friday’s hot, sunny weather was more reminiscent of the summery January days we first encountered in Cape Town, so we had no reason to expect that such gloomy, wet days were to follow.
On Friday, several people in the house put in extra days at their internships and some returned to activist projects. Groups of people also began preparing for the braai event on Sunday, which required shopping for food to serve 60 potential guests. When the grocery shoppers returned, their receipt stretched almost as tall as they were.
When I wasn’t working on end-of-trip tasks and assignments, I ran down to Thandokhulu School to lend a hand on the mural painting, but when I arrived around noon, the painters were out to lunch and I was left to linger as unassumingly as possible by the gate. I waited about twenty minutes before I decided simply to continue my run, so I changed course and ran up Main Rd toward UCT’s lower campus. Despite the relentless heat, I reached the Rhodes Memorial by 1:00. In the afternoon, I ran a few errands on Main Rd and helped to begin cleaning the house for the multitude of guests we expected on Sunday.
On Friday night, Jill and Rachel, who are interning at Christel House School, were invited to the Matric Ball, a function similar to a senior prom. Grade 12 students must take their Matric exams before graduating from high school, and their academic and professional futures ride heavily on their performance on the test, so to celebrate the rite of passage, many schools have a Matric Ball. Jill and Rachel dressed up prom-style and left after dinner, while others went out with their Cape Town friends or gathered around the Common Room for the evening.
On Saturday, the sun did not stream in through the northeast-facing windows to wake the house, which was our first clue that the weather was turning ominously wintry. The rainy season does not set in fully until late May, according to the Capetonians we’ve asked, but like any climate pattern, the rainy days roll in gradually, long before then. Our first reaction was that we were fortunate the Molo Songololo street soccer tournament had been postponed to the following Saturday, as this culmination of Dan, Kevin, and Faina’s activist project would have suffered low attendance in the dismal weather. We also made note of our good luck for having scheduled the braai for Sunday, because surely the bout of wet weather would run its course in 24 hours.
But the few quick showers we’d experienced during our solid string of 100 sunny days provided a poor frame of reference for rain in Cape Town. As it turns out, the heavy, gray skies had more in store for us. Sunday morning I awoke to the drumming of raindrops on the tin roof (Norah Jones style?) and shrunk back beneath the covers a bit. We had hours of cleaning and food preparation ahead of us, and now we had to find the room for all of our guests inside the house. I pulled on my rain jacket for the walk from the pool house to the main house, where a small group of us gathered to delegate tasks – vacuuming, drying off chairs from outside, moving tables, starting on the side dishes. We’d spent a few hours the previous night preparing some of the desserts, but we spent most of Sunday morning in the kitchen making the salads and sides. Despite the rain, we flung open the doors and windows as we cleaned, clearing out the stagnating air and allowing us to run between the different rooms and two “houses” with relative ease. We utilized both kitchens, having realized just that morning that the pool house stove was actually in working order. Around one o’clock, on a trip back into the pool house, I walked through the side door and into a mass of brightly colored balloons. Sitting half-obscured by the vibrant bunch, Cassidy, Jill, and Emily G were blowing up the last few balloons and looking perfectly jolly.The braai was scheduled to begin at 3:00, but it is not in the nature of the event to be punctual or constrained by time, so people began trickling in between 2 and 4PM, ringing the bell on the front gate and then squashing across the soggy front lawn. Most of our group had invited guests, including coworkers, friends from activist projects, and our professors and their families. Parks drove Ben, Marita, and several others out to Nyanga to pick up meat at Maphindi’s around 1:30, and for the first few hours of the event, Dan and Kevin tended to the braai and the four giant bags of sausage, lamb, and chicken.The Common Room collected a number of guests early in the afternoon, as people gathered around the pool table and lounged on the couches with paper plates of appetizers. Downstairs, most of the activity was concentrated around the braai patio and the avenue between the kitchen and the dining room. It was through the latter location that dozens of delicious dishes passed between 4 and 8PM, as we replenished chips, fruit, cheeses, biscuits, vegetables, meat, and other prepared plates all evening. We’d set up two main buffet tables downstairs, which split the guests between the dining room and the “Mandela Suite” (which functions as a downstairs living room) most of the night. But as seems to be inevitable at event gatherings, the kitchen routinely attracted a crowd (this probably had as much to with the cold beverages in the refrigerator as it did with the fact that it was the main thoroughfare between the braai patio and the rest of the house). The evening was filled with introductions and greetings, hugs and handshakes – and lots of camera flashes. Most of us made rounds to different rooms and clusters of guests during the event, stewarding food and drinks to people upstairs and checking on trays in the oven. It is traditional for braais to involve free-flowing drinks, so as one might expect, the night grew more animated and eventful as it progressed. We’d thrown together playlists for the braai on a few different iPods, and the increasingly upbeat music matched the mood, especially as the food was cleared from the table in the Mandela Suite, and the room became the venue for a conventionally American college game.
But lest it sound like the night ran irresponsibly amuck, it should be noted that the environment remained suitable for everyone in attendance, including our professors, friends’ families, and the many younger guests at the braai. The desserts came out a bit haphazardly, and several highly anticipated dishes never made it past the kitchen counter as guests swooped in and then dashed away with heaping plates of bannoffee pie, chocolate cake, and fruit salad. People began to disperse as it neared 8:00, and as the house emptied, the residents of 10 Loch Rd scurried about the downstairs rooms collecting discarded plates and napkins.But even the cleanup was hardly a chore. With the iPod dock blasting dance club tunes, more than half of the house lined up around the small kitchen table and danced through the dish washing, scrubbing, and tidying of the downstairs rooms. Vernon, Vincent, and their families were among the last to leave, and they made appearances in the house as we cleaned (and grooved) in our unconventional way. Marita and a few other guests spent most of the evening on the patio around the braai, on which we toasted marshmallows for s’mores (our fifth or sixth dinner course) around 9:00. Vernon and Vincent had never before tried American s’mores, and people were more than thrilled to show them the proper toasting and assembly methods.Around 10:00, someone requested live music, so the baby guitar came off of its shelf, and the pool house drew a crowd of music-lovers and musician-types. Several people took turns on the guitar, including Vincent and his son Justin, both of whom were proficient instrumentalists and played a number of songs as the rest of the room sang along. Vernon, Marita, Vincent’s daughter, and our friends Les, Masi, and JD were among those who gathered around the impromptu jam session, which included long-drawn-out versions of Bob Marley’s “Jammin’” and Justin’s own composition, “Salamander” (AKA the never-ending-song). We laughed and sang our way nearly to midnight, at which point just a few guests who would be staying at the house remained. When I noticed the smile-lines creased into my cheeks as I glanced in the mirror before bed, I realized that they were a testament to the success of the evening. Good friends, good food, good music, and good laughs – these are the fundamentals of a genuine South African braai. And in the days since, nearly everyone at 10 Loch Rd has expressed how much they had wished the night had never ended.
It seems we’ve hit that stretch of time at the end of every academic term where work and obligations have stacked up to fill nearly every waking hour of the day. So for lack of time, the coverage of this second-to-last week in South Africa will be a bit abbreviated…
I celebrated Easter morning with another run to the Rhodes Memorial, but on the way back, stopped at Pick ‘N’ Pay for – of all things – eggs. Though most of the house went out to Kirstenbosch in the late afternoon for an evening concert at the Gardens, a lot of us spent the afternoon watching agreeably frivolous movies in the Common Room. Before dinner I Skyped home for the holiday and then worked on putting together some of the slideshow presentation our group will be using for the May 1st symposium at UConn.
On Monday, our group enjoyed the novelty of the South African holiday and distributed time between assignments, errands, and small trips around Cape Town. Dan and Steph O. rode out towards Strand for Coke Fest, where several internationally popular artists performed during the afternoon and evening. Tuesday and Wednesday made for a short week at our internships, but with the presidential elections looming just a week away, many of our organizations have been exceptionally busy preparing for the big event.
At the Black Sash, Cassidy and I spent nearly all of Tuesday and Wednesday on the phone trying to contact more than fifty individuals representing NGOs and other civil society organizations around Cape Town. Our organization recently released its summary of the seven major political parties’ platforms on socioeconomic rights, and in an effort to encourage productive debate amongst members of South African civil society, the Black Sash arranged a breakfast meeting for this morning. Our goal was to bring a broad spectrum of political and economic views to the table for an open discussion.
Fulfilling our traditional intern roles, we phoned other organizations for attendance confirmations, made copies of booklets and agendas, created formalized guests lists, and assembled name tags for the event. (On Wednesday night our house met to discuss a braai we will be hosting on Sunday afternoon, and in an odd case of déjà vu, we wound up formulating more guest lists and delegating preparatory tasks amongst the group.)This morning, a cab picked Cassidy and I up from Loch Rd at 7AM and drove us out to Sea Point, just north of the Central Business District, where the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung organization and the Black Sash had booked a breakfast/conference room from 8:00 to 11:00 at the Winchester Mansions. The venue was classically beautiful with its ornate architecture and floral vines cascading down the interior courtyard walls. Even the unusually cold, gray morning couldn’t detract from the hotel’s charm as we scurried about, laying out the documents and name tags and sign-in sheets. We put on our most diplomatic smiles as we greeted the three or four dozen attendees, several of whom had the air of stiff, non-nonsense political types and others who looked nearly as flustered as we felt.We worked the front table for about an hour, and then slipped into the conference room to grab a bite to eat before jumping back into the cab waiting outside for a ride up to UCT for class. We arrived – as expected – about half an hour late to the morning class, but were there in time to take notes on the topics that will be covered in next week’s final exam. In the afternoon, Vernon joined us for the first time in two weeks, having just flown in from North Carolina where he’d been doing interviews for UNC Chapel Hill’s Cape Town study abroad program. We discussed our internships and final papers, and then many of us returned to the house for the hour and a half before Marita’s class.
The entire three hour class at Marita’s flat was dedicated to a very rough first-run of our symposium presentation for May 1st. We went through the 250+ slide presentation and delivered our 5 to 10 minutes-worth of information about internships, activities, and cultural experiences, taking the time to critique the content, delivery, and pictorial representations of each segment. It was a rather exhausting process at the end of such a long day, but the mood remained light, overall, especially as we descended into comedic reenactments of riding minibuses and telling jokes in Afrikaans. It was long past dark when we finally concluded the presentation and prepared to walk home for the night.
With our final days in South Africa fast approaching, I am sure the next week will be full of activity here at 10 Loch Rd. I’ll do my best to continue updating in a timely fashion.
Around noon on Saturday, I joined Emily A and Faina on a trip to the township of Nyanga, where they had arranged to meet two of their friends from ThandokhuluSchool. We packed our bags as sparingly as possible, knowing the risks of taking expensive items into the townships, and then we added the three bags of groceries we’d purchased early that morning to bring as a thank you for hosting us. Worried that we were running late, we jumped on a minibus heading to the Mowbray taxi rank, but when we arrived and were directed to the taxi headed for NY 1 (Native Yard One), we wound up sitting for no less than one hour and ten minutes in the terminal before the minibus filled to capacity and got the go-ahead to leave for its destination.
While we were waiting on the minibus, one of the women who sat next to us asked us about where we were going, where we were from, and what we thought of South Africa after all of our time here. Many people seemed curious to know about the three white girls sitting on the minibus headed for the townships, and we made casual conversation the whole twenty minute ride to Guguletu. Our contacts in the township, twin sisters Zimkhita and Zintle, had told us that when we got into Guguletu, we should get the driver on the phone with them and they would explain to him where we were supposed to get off. Clearly, this was an unusual scenario, but both the girls and the driver knew that we didn’t know the area and we couldn’t simply get out of the minibus unguided in the middle of the township.
So as the taxi began to empty along NY 1, Faina called the girls and thrust the phone in the driver’s ear, asking him to listen to their directions. The driver proceeded to drive the ramshackle vehicle down the pedestrian-filled street with one hand on the phone, shouting in Xhosa at the girl on the other end of the line. The three of us exchanged concerned looks as the minibus slowed on the side of the road a few minutes later and the driver returned the phone to Faina in a huff. Several passersby rapped on the windows and directed some unsettlingly presumptive remarks our way. We sat there, a little ill at ease, for a few more minutes before one of the girls finally appeared, walking down the road toward us and waving.
Zimkhita immediately greeted us with a spirited smile and warm hug, despite the fact that she and I had not yet met. Then she grabbed our hands and led us down the street of sandy, littered lots, square, cement homes, and roaming dogs and children. We drew eyes and comments everywhere we walked, and Zimkhita advised us not to bother paying attention to the men who catcalled or approached us with hands outstretched and mouths full of kowtowing flattery.
The small yard in front of the twins’ house was full of activity when we approached, with a dozen men and boys crowded around a fire that was churning puffs of gray smoke into the breeze. As we got closer, we saw that they had in fact just slaughtered a goat, and were gutting the splayed carcass in the dirt beside the fire pit. Their heads snapped toward us as we walked past, and several extended cheerful greetings. When we entered the house through the side door, we had to scoot by several family members in the kitchen area, and in the
process, we received hearty welcomes from each person we came across – an aunt, an uncle, a cousin, a little brother. A few paces forward and we were in the doorway to the living room, in which four people sat obscured by shadow, two on the plastic-covered furniture, two on a blanket on the floor.
The two on the floor immediately caught our eye because their faces were covered in a smeared white paste. We’d seen people from the townships wearing such paint, before, but did not know its significance, so after we were encouraged to sit down on one of the plastic-lined couches, we started a conversation with the two women next to us. We each introduced ourselves, and then we asked the women about the ritual that seemed to be taking place in the house. Why had the men just slaughtered the goat? What was the significance of the white paint? Why were they eating the goat meat from a plate on the floor? We asked these questions without judgment and out of sincere curiosity, and the women seemed both surprised and delighted that we wanted to know more about it.
The younger woman explained that the ceremony marked her transition into womanhood and that all of the aspects of the ritual helped to link her to her ancestors and her family’s honor. I asked if I could take a few pictures, and everyone in the room graciously obliged, so I took out my camera and recorded as much as I felt was polite. They all were eager to see how each picture turned out after I snapped the shots.
Handfuls of people moved in and out of the tiny house while we sat talking with the women in the living room. Several were men from the front, bringing in bowls of goat entrails and eventually the gutted goat itself, which they lay across a bed of leaves in front of a wall unit on the cracked linoleum floor. A short young woman with a baby tied to her back was among the half dozen other women who came and went while we waited for the twins to finish some household tasks. Emily, Faina, and I sat in the room beside the three women and the goat carcass, engaging in conversation as best we could and trying to control our wide-eyed grins, which probably looked an awful lot like the ones we were receiving from everyone else who walked in and saw us sitting there, as well.
The twins hurried by a few times, promising us that we’d be going out to lunch in a few moments and then disappearing again out the door. About twenty minutes after we’d arrived, the twins collected us from the living room and brought us to a back room to leave our bags. Heading out the side door, again, the girls’ neighbor, Thandi – who happens to be a cleaner at Thandokhulu – met up to join us for lunch at Maphindi’s Butchery, where we were planning to buy and braai meet, a few blocks away.
Walking down the streets to Maphindi’s, the girls seemed to know a shocking number of the people we passed. I’d wanted to bring my camera along, even though we’d had to leave our bags at the house, but even though I’d concealed it inconspicuously in a sock and intended to keep it hidden in my pocket, Thandi insisted that I give it to her for safekeeping. She muttered something about the corrupt people around the townships as she took the camera and tucked it away down the front of her blouse. I turned to find Emily and Faina’s eyes, as my own widened in bemusement. No sooner had we left the front walk and started up the street than the twins had us by the hand and were looping our arms through theirs for the five minute walk to the locally renowned butcher.
Several men leered at us as we shuffled along the road, safely linked arm-in-arm with the girls, but we weren’t fazed by the few guys who tried to grab our free hands or walk uncomfortably close as we passed. We’ve been in Cape Town long enough to know what to expect of the townships, and we were not personally offended or put off by the forwardness or the reactions to our presence. For as many uncomfortable advances as there were, we had even more cases of people clapping and cheering us, expressing genuine pleasure that we had come into their neighborhood as friends. Even when a police car stopped in the road beside us and one its occupants asked to talk to us, the girls continued to look straight ahead and told us to ignore them. The pretenses of the policemen’s stop seemed dubious enough that we took the girls’ advice and walked on without glancing back toward the car, and sure enough, the police rolled away behind us a moment later.
The street in front of Maphindi’s two-story building was lined with old cars and milling patrons. The smell of braaing meat was thick in the smoky air as we walked into the deli section of the butchery and picked out our selection of red meat. The girls ordered a platter of long, thin sausage – a standard, here – and a carbonated lemonade, and then after a quick group photo, they showed us around the establishment. We walked outside to the braai and then around to the eating area, which included a dozen metal, fold-down tables and two TVs mounted on the walls. Between the Coca Cola signs hanging on the walls and the MTV music videos playing in the corner, it felt like we might just have slipped into an alternative-universe-United States; global corporatism is alive and well. But then the girls returned with the braaied meat and it became very clear that we were somewhere very different than Storrs, CT.
The winding rope of sausage was served on a large platter, dripping with braai marinade and lacking any plates, napkins, or utensils. The girls had bought a half loaf of white bread and several tiny plastic cups, and with those items alone, we proceeded to eat our meal. We watched as the girls and Thandi tore pieces of bread and squeezed off chunks of sausage with their finger tips. Faina and I tried to mimic the way they wrapped the sausage in the bread and then dragged the little rolls across the platter to soak up the extra juices. If I weren’t so caught up in trying to appear gracious and culturally competent (they had, after all, paid for our meal) I might have been repelled by the platter in front of me, but thankfully, my head overruled my stomach and I enjoyed the meal well enough. (Emily’s vegetarianism, however, led her to opt out of the Maphindi’s classic.)
Together we soaked up every last bit of marinade off the plate, and then we walked around the corner to buy soft serve ice cream cones at R3 (30 cents) a piece. It was nearing 4:30 when we left the butchery and started walking back toward the girls’ house, and the sun was slanting at an angle that warned us we had a limited amount of time left to travel safely by public transit. On the way back to the house we encountered more of the same reactions and comments on the street, but we felt fairly at ease now that we’d gotten a feel for the place. Thandi bid us goodbye at the front gate, and we parted with hugs all around. She returned my camera and waved as we turned to follow the girls back into the house.
We joined the group in the living room, again, and on request, took several group photos with members of the twins’ extended family, as well as with the desiccated goat. They all asked us to send them the pictures when we got home. Before 5:00, Faina called one of her friends in Khayelitsha, and the twins told us they’d walk us to the taxi rank to move on to our next destinations. Around the corner, we ran into some of the twins’ friends driving a small sedan, and they arranged for all five of us to squeeze into the backseat (sitting on top of one another, of course) for the ride to the terminal. On the other end of the short trip, we popped out of the little car like too many circus clowns, and the girls led us to the appropriate taxis.
I had opted to head back to Rondebosch before the limited safety of the daylight faded, so Zimkhita and Zintle found me the Mowbray-bound taxi and told me where to get off. I thanked them wholeheartedly for taking us into their home and around their neighborhood, and then I climbed into the back of the minibus and watched the twins lead Emily and Faina to the Khayelitsha taxis out of my line of sight. Faina and Emily would be spending the night in Khayelitsha with a friend, so I was on my own for the trip home.
Once again, I had to wait for the minibus to fill up before the driver returned to drive us toward the suburbs. But sitting in the minibus in the middle of Nyanga all by myself was oddly invigorating. A woman who sat down next to me in the back seat asked me where I was coming from, and I realized I didn’t know exactly where I’d just been, so instead I told her where I was going. She seemed to take our exchange as a cue to become my guardian for the rest of the twenty-minute ride through Guguletu and Athlone, helping to sort out my change after I paid with a 50 Rand bill and instructing me how to get the driver’s attention when we neared Rondebosch. I was happily surprised to find that I knew where we were for most of the trip, as I’ve grown familiar with Athlone and Klipfontein Rd, and I had no trouble figuring out how and where to shout, Thank you, driver!and disembark the minibus.
I walked around the Red Cross Hospital property and arrived back at Loch Rd just before 6PM. Only a few people were home when I arrived, but Kevin, Dan, and I ran to Woolworth's for a few items before dinner. We expect that most stores will be closed tomorrow for Easter, so many people had to buy items tonight for tomorrow’s picnic dinner at KirstenboschGardens. Tomorrow marks the last concert of the summer at the Gardens, where a national youth favorite Goldfish will be performing at 5:30. More than half of the house has tickets for the event.
Today, meanwhile, the rest of the house had split up between dog-walking at TEARS, shark diving outside of Cape Town, and attending a braai in the suburb of Tableview. As expected, we’re all making the most of our final weeks in South Africa.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at Black Sash, we devoted most of the day to formulating guest lists and finding contact information for the people our organization would be inviting to a “civil society” breakfast next Thursday. The challenge was that we had to accomplish a lot of it without consistent internet service and a proxy that wouldn’t allow us access to several important sites.
On Tuesday night we had a house meeting for the first time in three weeks, and the unusually melancholy atmosphere was indicative of our mental shift towards the final-days countdown. The darkness has crept earlier into the evening hours, now, as well, so the single working light bulb in the common room muted any positive energy that might have been lingering there, anyway. The meeting was short and succinct, working out the logistical details of the house fund and the last twenty days in Cape Town. Afterward, we made our way back to our corners of the house to continue watching movies or working on the papers we had to finish for Thursday.
Wednesday morning, Kevin and I left the house at 6:45, again, to run up to the Rhodes Memorial for the sunrise. The cool night air had caused a thin layer of white mist to settle over the Commons, making for some very eerie photo ops. (I was glad to have brought my compact camera along.) We took the 2.5+ mile run to the memorial at a very brisk pace, and it was quite arduous to sprint the last three flights of steps to the top of the memorial, where we tagged the statue of Cecil Rhodes to mark our victory. From our mountainside vantage point, I took more photos of the gilded suburbs and townships, awash in the first rays of morning sun. About ten minutes later we began the descent back towards town, up Belmont Avenue to the Commons, and around the open field toward Loch Rd. During lunch, later that day, Cassidy and I walked to the chemist down the street from Black Sash so I could pick up Epsom salt for a foot soak that night.All three of Thursday’s classes included guest speakers, and we met in a UCT classroom with a projector so that the first speaker, Bea Abrams, could hook up a PowerPoint presentation. Bea was part of the anti-Apartheid struggle during the ‘80s, and lived in exile in other parts of Africa and Easter Europe for fifteen years before returning to work with the victims of torture and human rights violations in southern Africa. She presented us with case studies of past conflicts in Sierra Leone and Democratic Republic of Congo, while making a case for why truth is “gendered” – that is, how men and women are targeted and affected differently by war and human rights abuses because of the structural inequalities that exist in these countries even before the conflicts.
Over our hour break for lunch, I hiked up to the Rhodes Memorial, again (just ten minutes from campus), with a few other people who’d yet to see it. Then we walked back to our usual classroom for a lecture on disabilities and the education system in South Africa, delivered by Vernon’s wife, Esmé. At 3:00, most people left for Main Rd, where they planned to spend the hour and a half before Marita’s class began. Faina and Emily A have been working on a mural at their internship placement, Thandakhulu High School, however, and the three of us walked to the school in Mowbray to pick up the keys that Faina had left there the day before. It took about an hour to walk to the school, which is closed for a 2-week mid-semester break, and then back to Loch Rd in Rondebosch. We had a few minutes to drop of notebooks and check email before we had to head back out across the Commons to Marita’s flat for our third class.
The speaker in Marita’s class was a women we’d met at the Slave Lodge Museum our first week in Cape Town. She spoke with us for a little over two hours about the history of slavery in the Western Cape and the importance of learning and identifying with one’s personal history. We watched a short film on the colonization of the Western Cape by the Dutch East India Company and the English in the early 18th century, and learned about the diverse roots of the people living in the Western Cape, today, as well as the “creole” language of Afrikaans. The class ended a bit early because of the darkness, giving us the chance to walk back to Loch Rd. before the night enveloped the Commons and made it unsafe to pass. As per usual, most of the house went out around 9 o’clock, contributing toward their unstated goal of keeping Elite Cab Service in business.
On Friday, I decided to join in the mural painting at Thandakhulu, so at noon I left with Dan to run the 1.5 miles to Mowbray. The temperature rivaled the summer heat of our first months in Cape Town, so we arrived at the school in need of a few minutes to cool down before grabbing paint brushes. Faina and Emily had spent three days measuring, drawing, and cutting out the lettering stencils for the mural – a large rendition of the school logo – and they’d just begun painting that morning. Having little to no experience using acrylic paints or crating giant outdoor murals, Dan and I were a bit apprehensive about jumping right in with our plate of blue paint and clean white brushes. Fortunately, Faina instructed us to begin on a large, uncomplicated section of the logo “background”, and we got a handle on the painting technique as we worked.We painted for about two hours before all four of us decided to break for lunch. Dan and I had actually spent almost half of that time climbing the spiky pomegranate trees in the schoolyard, trying to shake down the ripe fruit with a mop handle and a lot of cautious maneuvering. We'd managed to knock a few free of the top branches, but all but one split open as it hit the black top below. Nonetheless, we'd feasted on fresh pomegranates (and one big worm – ick) for a while before we actually decided to go to lunch. We had been cramped into the tiny space around the wall, leaning off of ladders or wedged in behind them for quite a while when we broke for lunch, so it felt good to stretch as we walked the ten minutes down Main Rd. toward Pick ‘N’ Pay in Obs. Despite the fact that it was holiday, the grocery store was open (and crowded), and we bought individual containers of freshly prepared pickled fish and vegetables, which are the popular Good Friday meal. For lack of anywhere else to sit down and eat, we walked across the street to the Main Rd. McDonald's (yes, they are everywhere; they even help to sponsor Thandokhulu School) and ate outside on two picnic tables.
Dan left for Loch Rd after lunch, while the three of us continued painting for another four hours until the light grew to dim to work. When we stepped back to take stock of our progress at the end of the day, we were surprised by how well it was coming along. The main color, dark blue, was complete by 6:15, and we called Tokyo, the school custodian, to lock up as we left. We took the long route home up Main Rd. so that we could stop by the Baxter Theatre to see if there were any good plays we might want to see in the next couple of weeks, and then, despite the semi-darkness, we decided to take a one-lap run around the Commons before dinner.
The holiday weekend extends to Monday, here, which is designated National Family Day, so we’ve got three unscheduled days ahead of us. The group has a lot to accomplish on their to-do lists before we leave in two weeks, so I imagine there will be some interesting activities planned for this weekend.
On Saturday morning the weather looked a bit ominous (at least by Cape Town standards) for a hike up the tallest mountain in the city. We took a good long look at the hazy mountaintop and heavy gray sky before setting off in the car towards Kirstenbosch with our packs full of water and snacks. Rachel and I had decided to join Emily A and her mother (who is visiting for the week) on the TableMountain hike, and the four of us began the trek from the Gardens around 9:15 in the morning. It took us two hours of steep climbing up the rocky gorge before we clambered out above the tree line and took in the first incredible view off the mountainside. In that time, the thick, humid air yielded two brief bouts of rain, each one bringing heavy drops splattering down through the leafy canopy over our heads, a much needed refreshment from the tropical atmosphere.
The climb was fairly strenuous, but we set a pace that was manageable for all four of us. Neither Rachel nor Emily’s mother had hiked the mountain before, so at the more grueling points, Emily and I did our best to keep the troupe optimistic; our encouragements often included estimates of how close we were from the next great view, a good rest spot, or the summit of the mountain. The sun burned through the remaining clouds by the time we reached the trail along the rocky ridge near the top of the mountain, but thankfully there was a steady breeze to keep us cool as we set off towards the summit just out of view. We stopped to enjoy the clusters of King Protea – the national flower – popping out of the rocks and scraggly brush along the mountaintop, and to listen to the quiet nature sounds of the serene location.
On this second trip to the top of TableMountain, I picked up on a few things I hadn’t recognized the first time. For one, the trip itself seemed much shorter than it had before, since we knew what to expect of each section of the trail. It was also a bit cooler than the first time we’d climbed, and we took it a bit slower so we didn’t wear ourselves out prematurely. Emily and I recalled how the first hike had felt endless, like it had consumed an entire day and had taken us far from civilization. This time I still was aware of our distinct separation from the city below us, but I did not feel quite as disconnected from Cape Town.
We ate our lunches by the cairn of rocks at the highest peak and talked with a man from London who’d taken the cable car up to walk along the top. Then we set off on the relatively easy walk along the boardwalk path that took us to the very edge of the “Table” overlooking the City Bowl below. The wind was much stronger than the first time we’d climbed, and I had to put my camera away so that I could use one hand to hold onto my hat and the other to clutch the rocky cliff along which we shuffled. The views were as phenomenal as ever as we approached the cable car station and the clouds rolled in from the north and south. The roiling white wisps enveloped the lower peaks around us, including the narrow ridge of Lion’s Head that stood in perfect view of the cable car while we descended.
Emily’s great aunt, who lives in Cape Town, was kind enough to pick us up at the base of the mountain and drive us back to Loch Rd. Earlier in the morning, several people had joined a protest march coordinated by the Social Justice Coalition, and in late afternoon most of the group ventured into the city for the Jazz Festival, so the house was relatively quiet. I worked on a paper in the evening and did a bit of cleaning in the pool house.
On Sunday morning, two of the students interning at ThandakhuluHigh School had arranged to meet one of the school’s teachers in the township of Guguletu for a church service, so I tagged along. Our first experience at a township church had been quite moving; the dancing and songs of worship had been full of energy, and I’d appreciated the strong sense of community. Emily’s mother drove us to the township, about fifteen minutes from Rondebosch, at which point we were joined by the teacher, Ms. Bopi, for the rest of the ride to the church. The Thandakhulu interns have spoken highly of Ms. Bopi from the day they began their internships at the school, and immediately upon meeting her, I understood why. The short, middle-aged woman was beaming as she scurried across the street to meet us, arms outstretched, bright beaded necklace and colorful head wrap further illuminating her welcoming expression. Her boisterous, mother-hen disposition was enhanced a few minutes later by her two young daughters’ bouncing approach as we seated ourselves in the church pews.
We’d arrived around 10:45, so we listened to the end of the prayer service that preceded the traditional service at 11. The church was about three times as large as the little one we’d visited in January, but the powerful preaching and hymns still filled up the space inside the cement-walled, tin-roofed building. Once again, the absence of a piano or organ left room for makeshift instrumentals: clapping, rhythmic stomping, and the beating of a small leather pillow (thwump!). The Baptist service was delivered almost entirely in Xhosa, expect for the greetings extended to us – the visitors – and the one line introductions we were encouraged to stand up and deliver to the church community.
The testimonials portion of the service was quite an emotional ordeal, as members of the parish came to the front of the pews and talked about transpired events that required the intervention or forgiveness of God. One woman dissolved into tears and sobs as she begged skyward in a desperate prayer. Though we couldn’t understand her story, we could see its affecting impact all around us. Most of the women in the church bent forward to dab at their eyes with tissues.
The service lasted until after 1 and ended with the parishioners forming a line along the wall to the main door, shaking everyone’s hands as they passed. Despite the language barrier, we were shuffled along in the process and greeted warmly by every person in the church. All the while the parishioners continued to sing and dance, infusing the whole event with a lively, friendly energy. Before leaving, we spoke with several members of the church about where we were from and how long we were in the country. Several people were kind enough to invite us back to the church for Good Friday.
On the drive back through Guguletu, we passed the many township scenes with which we’ve grown familiar: people crowding along the sides of the roads, children, dogs, and goats running free in the streets, the rich sounds and colors of Sunday afternoon life in such a poor and densely populated area. When we passed a corral of sheep jammed between the road and a small cinderblock house, Emily’s mother remarked dolefully, “Oh! They’re going to be smileys!” (For more information on smileys, see Dan’s post, here.)
Some people spent Sunday afternoon in the city participating in the Cape Town food festival, sampling food from a number of expensive restaurants. Most of the house watched a movie in the evening. And I walked to Main Rd to pick up the week’s groceries at Pick ‘n’ Pay, since Checkers was closed after 4PM. I spent the rest of the night making dinner and working on organizing photos and videos from the trip.
It rained enough last night to bring a chill to the air this morning as I set out for a run at 7AM. The ground was damp and the air smelled like wet pavement and car exhaust as I ran around the Commons with the early morning sun lighting up TableMountain in front of me; it was a pleasant environment for running. The minibus ride into the city this morning was a bit more hair raising than usual, however, because of the hawker’s practice of wrenching open the side door well before we’d pulled to a stop. I’d been squished into the last (non)seat, right next to the door, so there were a number of close calls as the door pulled back. I was left clinging to my bag and the seat in front of me and throwing my weight to the right as the curb whooshed past at thirty miles an hour on my left. Cassidy and I couldn’t help but laugh about the purely Capetonian scenario – but only after we arrived at the taxi rank all in one piece.
At six o’clock, we gathered in the upstairs Common Room with Ben for a final house meeting before leaving, and we did our best to vocalize our thanks and appreciation for all he’s done the last four months as both our RA and our friend. Naturally, the room dissolved into tears and sniffles as we shuffled back downstairs and lugged our suitcases out through the gates to Parks and the waiting van. We loaded the trailer, and then, now devoid of our South African keys and cell phones, waited outside in relative silence for the twenty minutes it took for Ben to fetch Marita and her luggage and meet us. The cool air and dusky light made the moment all the more nostalgic as we gazed wistfully back at the sliver of house that we could still see over the cement wall. We took turns saying goodbye to Parks as we waited.
I’d decided to take my chances getting the baby guitar on the plane as a carry-on item, so I had the instrument in hand as we waited. Jordan was also planning to carry on her bongo, and Dan decided to pull out his harmonica, so between the three of us, we were bound to look like a traveling band once we reached the airport. Vernon and Esmé were waiting to bid us farewell at the international terminal, where we congregated in the entryway with our loads of luggage and rather forlorn expressions. Emily G and Steph Y are staying in the country a few more weeks, and the tearful goodbyes continued until we had to move on through the passengers-only gate to check in. We checked our luggage without any trouble, despite fears that many of the bags would be overweight and call for hefty fines, and then we said our last goodbye to Ben at the foot of the escalator to our gate. Having been together for months, leaving pieces of our group behind felt like abandoning parts of ourselves; it was both sad and surreal.
We had several hours to kill in the airport, so most of us had dinner at a café in the terminal. A few people contemplated accepting an offer to take a flight the following night because of over-booking on our plane, but in the end, we all boarded the KLM flight around 10:30. Shortly thereafter, the thirteen of us and Marita bid South Africa its final farewell as we took off on the first leg of our 22-hour trip back to the United States.
