20 Mar 2009 – Camps Bay, Classes, and Idasa

Almost three days later, the smoke is still rising off of Table Mountain, but the fire trucks and helicopters dropping water have reduced the fires to isolated patches of burning brush. Driving back along the N2 from the city, last night, the smoldering orange glow of the fires dotted the woods beside the highway, which was lined with emergency vehicles flashing warning lights. We’ve heard that this was the largest fire on the mountain in five years, and as many as sixty homes were evacuated the night that it began. Several injuries and one death have been reported, but fortunately, the worst of the fire has passed since the first night. Now the charred undergrowth on the northern slope of the mountain is only casting clouds of light gray soot over the homes and shops that sit uncomfortably close to the embers.

Though I’d arranged not to go into Black Sash on Wednesday, I spent most of the morning finishing up a report that we were responsible for circulating by the end of the week. After lunch, Hilary and I took a minibus to the Cape Town taxi rank and then a second taxi to Camps Bay, a beautiful beachfront location that attracts many tourists to the Cape Town area. The cooler weather kept us out of the water, but we combed the beach beneath Lion’s Head and the Twelve Apostles for almost an hour and then walked down the palm-lined street of tourist shops and restaurants filled with Europeans in resort attire. Before hopping a minibus back to Cape Town, we bought ice cream cones at a gelato shop by the beach and scanned the roadside tables of South African curios.

At Hilary’s request, we spent the rest of the afternoon in Cape Town, cruising through the stands and stands of trinkets at the outdoor market on St. George’s Mall. We haggled with a few vendors and observed that most of the stands were selling identical items. After a small bite to eat at one of my favorite city cafés, we walked to Edgar’s department store, where we spent the last hour or two of the afternoon browsing the sale racks. The ultra-commercial location was hardly a South African tourist staple, but Hilary seemed to enjoy herself, and after all, the pretenses of her stay in Cape Town were quite different than mine.

We joined Dan, Dan’s dad, Vincent, Molly Blank, and Ben for dinner at Marita’s on Wednesday evening, as is customary when members of our group have guests visiting. Over dinner, the company and conversations (not to mention the food) were quite enjoyable. The topics ranged from Cape Town experiences to family and friends to the Table Mountain fire, and were at times light-hearted and fun, at times thought-provoking and insightful. Hilary and I enjoyed ourselves immensely and to top it off, left at 9 o’clock with of bag of extra cheese biscuits.

On Thursday, Hilary joined me at UCT for classes in the morning and afternoon, and after a stop back at the house for her to finish packing, we went into town for a lecture in place of Marita’s class. The lecture was held at Idasa, the institute for democracy in South Africa, and covered issues of politics, gender, and society in the lead-up to the April election. We mingled with other guests over hors d’oeuvres in the lobby before sitting down to an hour-long lecture on voter statistics, party trends, and media influence. Several political analysts and social researchers delivered the information piece by piece. A question and answer session followed, and a little after 8PM we took a cab back to Rondebosch and Hilary and I prepared to head off to the airport. Her flight was scheduled to depart at midnight, so we took a cab around 9:30, and the drop-off and check-in went without a hitch.

Since our group is leaving for the week-long academic excursion to Durban early Saturday morning, most of us spent Friday at our activist projects and then packing and preparing for the trip. We ran errands to Main Rd, cleaned up the house, and tried to finish eating any food that might go bad during the week we are away.

Our destinations are supposed to be absolutely gorgeous, and the activities we have planned will be significantly different than our usual routine, so the entire group is looking forward to the trip. With any luck, we will have internet available to us on Monday night (and perhaps a few other times during the week, as well). Updates may be more sporadic than usual, but regardless of the delay, rest assured that pictures and posts will be forthcoming.