An Epic Entry – you can just look at the pictures if you want

Hello Everyone!

Mindy and I actually DID end up going rock climbing with the mountain and ski club, which was SO MUCH FUN! I’ve never climbed outside before (only in indoor caves) and it was absolutely exhilarating (and a lot harder than it looks)! I was inspired enough to buy my own pair of climbing shoes, which I try on at least once a day. So far I’ve been practicing climbing on the baseboard around the house – I don’t think the landlord will be very happy with the black rubber marks they leave behind though… Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to climb with the club since school had picked up and I’ve been completely occupied with my classes.


I'm on the top left

Speaking of which, after a stressful week of acquiring signatures and permission and breaking the rules and running from building to building, I decided to drop my independent study course. Because volunteering with My Africa Jam fell through for multiple reasons, which I’m still pretty bummed about, and I was so overwhelmingly busy with my other courses, I just couldn’t fathom writing another 40 page paper at the end of the year. I picked up another short module in postgraduate research methods that starts this coming Tuesday in gender analysis for research projects with a really great professor. My other module ended before break and I REALLY loved it (getting an appreciative A on my first paper may have had something to do with it). I had an EXTREMELY busy couple of weeks before break with three papers and a presentation due within a week and a half of each other, but I pulled it off with a couple all-nighters (literally no sleep) and miraculously did really well on all of them. I celebrated the first two with friends and bloody marys over brunch at a restaurant above the train station in Muizenberg. It doesn’t look like the semester will be slowing down at all and I still haven’t caught up with all of my readings, let alone reviewing the material for the final that counts for a honking 50% of the final grade. I think I’ll have to start scheduling all of my waking hours in order to be ready for them when they come in June (I know it’s so far in advance, but seriously, South African students are robots… I don’t know how they do it).

During my hectic schedule somewhere, Interstudy took us on another one of their excursions. The first stop was the District 6 Museum. District 6 in Cape Town used to be a racially and religiously diverse area in the heart of Cape Town until the forced removals under Apartheid declared the area to be for whites only. Over 60,000 people were forcibly moved to the Cape Flats and their homes were bulldozed – the only buildings left standing were places of worship. The area had been left untouched until 2003 when the government began building homes for former residents to return to, however many refuse to move back. The museum opened in 1994 to display the history and culture of the neighborhood, including photographs, personal stories, murals, old road signs, the history of the area and the impact that Apartheid had on its destruction. The museum is owned and operated by former residents who give personal heart-wrenching anecdotes of their experiences there.


plaque on the D6 Museum (click to see closer image)

Next, our guides took us on a walking tour of Langa township where we were able to see firsthand the terribly impoverished lives of township residents. We visited various stores, neighborhoods, and shebeens (unlicensed bars) from the ‘nicer’ parts of the Langa where people own their homes or live in standardized government housing, to the poorer areas where people inhabited leaky corrugated shacks, sometimes containing 3 or 4 families.


a typical one-family bedroom

Interstudy provided us with candy to pass out to the kids who would run up to you with their hands out, snatch a piece, and run away to eat it. Some of them liked to have their pictures taken and would laugh hysterically when you showed them their pictures. Something about the whole situation felt wrong and exploitative, and I couldn’t get myself to pass out the candy or snap many pictures of people.



I felt ashamed coming off an air-conditioned tour bus in a big (mostly) white and privileged group, giant cameras in hand, gasping at the awful way people had to live and asking kids to pose so we could have cute pictures of poor children to put on facebook. Our guides, who were raised in the township and knew the residents, insisted that this was okay since the money that we spend there and on the tour benefits the community, however I still felt uneasy about it all.



Our last stop in the Langa was at a shebeen where we passed along a bucket (formerly a paint bucket?) of homemade beer at the amusement of the locals, who thought our disgusted faces were quite hysterical. I started to realize how the experience was more reciprocal than I thought, and that it was important and beneficial for us to interact with residents and them with us. I left feeling less guilty about the whole thing.


sharing homemade beer in the shebeen

Our last stop was a tour of Robben Island and its maximum security prison, where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were held during the Apartheid era. All parts of the tour were guided by ex-political prisoners who at some point in their lives had occupied its prison. They shared their own experiences about the daily life there, as well as stories about Nelson Mandela and his influence there.


Mandela's cell

The following weekend I went with some friends to volunteer in Khayelitsha township with an after-school program for children with HIV and AIDS. When we arrived, we were told that one of the buses with the children on it broke down, so the volunteers outnumbered the kids. They sang and danced for us and looked so happy and healthy. Fortunately, they’re all receiving ARVs and one of the volunteers told me that he almost didn’t recognize one of the girls because the last time he had seen her a couple months before she had been about 20 pounds lighter because she wasn’t getting any treatment. When all of them look so healthy and happy, it’s very difficult to grasp the reality of the situation – that many of them live in violent and abusive homes and they all share a life-threatening disease.


singing for us

A group of us split off and started brainstorming about ways to improve the space for the kids, including cleaning up the yard and the abandoned building next door. Although I’m really busy with school, I hope to spend more time volunteering with them, as well as with an orphanage in Nyanga township that my neighbor Michael volunteers with often.

On March 31st my mom, dad, Zach, and Zach’s friend Liz flew into Cape Town and we kicked off our adventurous vacation with a couple pitchers of Margaritas and shots of tequila at the Fat Cactus for dinner. After a morning of rest, we crammed into a public taxi and rode to downtown Cape Town, which left mom pale-faced in the front seat, nervously chatting up the lady sitting next to her, June, while we blew red lights and weaved our way through traffic. When we asked for directions to Bo Kaap, June offered to take us there, stopping along the way to see traditional dancers performing in the outdoor market. We walked around Bo Kaap to see the beautiful houses (I brought my camera this time), and stopped for lunch at the same Indian restaurant as my last visit.


Bo Kaap


lunch with June

June walked us to the waterfront where we had drinks and met a man from Johannesburg who said he would show Stefan and I around if we travel his way during the summer. Finally, we walked down to Long street and had a few more drinks while we waited for Al (my favorite cab driver) to come pick us up and take us home for the night.


June - walking around Cape Town


Waterfront

The next day we took the cable car up Table Mountain, had lunch, and hiked a few of the trails on top until we were ready to collapse form heat exhaustion. We spent the evening recuperating and ordered in pizza for dinner.


on the top of Table Mountain

In the morning we left bright and early and drove along the garden route on N2 all the way to Plettenberg where we checked into our condo, took a dip in the pool, and went to bed for the night. The next day we drove to Tsitsikamma where dad, Zach, Liz and I jumped off the Bloukrans Bridge – the highest commercial bungee jump in the world!


pre-jump (Liz was still dangling)

I was disappointed that I didn’t go the first time around, so I convinced everyone to come along with me, and it was so incredibly thrilling! I only managed to scream for a second or two until I lost my breath, and the butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling only lasted a couple seconds as well. You didn’t even feel like you were falling after that – it was so bizarre. Next time I’m falling backwards!


mid-jump!

After jumping, we went over to the Knysna elephant park and fed the ellies (again for me!). This time around we had a really crabby guide and it was way more rigid than it was the last time, but still an unbelievable experience. I still can’t get over: one, how well they listen, considering how little anyone could do to punish them – and two, how strong and dexterous their trunks are! They have some serious maneuvering skills.


feeding time

The next day we went to Tsitsikamma national park and hiked the boardwalk to a suspension bridge right out of a movie, with the most amazing blue lagoon-like water, green hills, and white sand beaches. Zach and dad climbed the hill for a better view while mom, Liz and I relaxed in the shade before we shook the bridge until my mom threatened to murder us all on the other side (party pooper).



On the way out of the park we spotted a group of dolphins jumping through the water just off the coast, as well as dassies, my mom’s personal favorite because they are the closest living relatives of elephants (???). On the drive to our next stop in Port Elizabeth we had to stop several times to avoid hitting the baboons on the side of the road (???).








a view from the drive on N2

That evening we went on a township tour in Port Elizabeth with a local tour guide, Mizolisi. It was just him and our family so we didn’t feel as invasive and we got to stop and chat with the residents whenever we wanted. Unfortunately, the school, the crafts lady, and the community center were all closed, but we got to spend a great deal of time going from tavern to tavern and chatting with locals about their lives. We went home in the early evening so we could get up early to drive north to Schotia where we would go on a safari at in the afternoon.


dancing for us


new friends in the tavern

The following afternoon, after signing a waiver, we all jumped into a truck and headed out on the safari. The park was humungous and beautiful but the trails that the trucks followed served as a reminder that everything was not quite natural, however, we were reminded several times that it was definitely not a zoo. For the next four hours we spotted: giraffe, white rhino, red hartebeest, common duiker, springbok, blue wildebeest, jackal, dung beetle, ostrich, warthog, bushbuck, kudu, and zebra up close and personal. Totally surreal.




Timon


and Pumba









At sundown, we heard from other park rangers that they had spotted a lioness up on a hill that had just finished a meal and we zoomed off to find her. And there she was, not 15 feet away from us, belly full of fresh kill (shockingly just on the other side of our vehicle), ignoring us as we shined a spotlight on her until we were ready to go.



We drove off to a hut where there was a hot meal, free drinks, and bonfires waiting for us. We stayed for a couple hours and then drove back to our huts in the park for the night where I snuggled a humungous bullfrog (so cute).



In the morning we got up early for a 7am drive, covered ourselves with the warm wool blankets on our seats, and almost immediately came upon an adult and an adolescent male lion lounging in the sun 10 feet from our vehicle. While we were in shock with how close we were to them, our guide explained to us that the animals recognize the vehicles as non-threatening, but they don’t know the human form. So as long as we stay in the vehicle we will be safe. Just as he finished his sentence, the safari ranger from the vehicle ahead of us jumped out with a stick to tap the termite next 100 feet away to get their attention – which made for beautiful pictures but definitely got our hearts pounding. We finished off the trip with a fresh hot breakfast, and a few cups of coffee and made our way to Addo Elephant Park 45 minutes away for a self drive.





We spent all day in the park until closing at 6 and were shocked to see most of the animals listed above, plus meerkat, elephant, mongoose, leopard tortoise, vervet monkey, and dung beetles in action. We spent the night at a charming cabin on a citrus farm and got up in the early a.m. to make our way back home.







Halfway back, just outside of Oudtshoorn, we stopped at an ostrich show farm to ride an ostrich. The animal lover in me feels guilty, especially seeing how hard the big guy was panting with me on his back, but it was way too fun to pass up. They really are ugly.




Liz, ostrichback

Now we’re back and we’ve been relaxing, eating, shopping, watching movies, playing with Nelson (turns out ‘she’ is a boy) and sleeping. Tomorrow we’re going with my neighbor Michael to Nyanga township where we’re throwing an Easter party for the orphanage, eating at a popular local restaurant, and taking another tour of the area.

Fewf! I’ll try to write more often from now on. Hope everyone’s having a happy Easter!

Love,
Emily