Cape Town Adventures

Hello Again from Africa!

2007-04-25T09:57:00.000+02:00

Hey Everyone,
So I realize that as the semester progresses my dispatches back home are becoming less and less frequent. Please know that the gaps are not a sign I’m not thinking of you all but rather of my inability to sit down at a computer for long enough to jot down everything I’ve been up to. Just when I’m about to finish an e-mail, I up and go off to Zimbabwe (and you think I’m kidding? Continue on, dear friend :)
The past few weeks have been truly extraordinary. Last time I wrote I was heading off to Johannesburg with my friend Jake. Sure, there is no such thing as perfect, but our trip came quite close. We didn’t waste a second, veering through one of the world’s most dangerous cities to visit the Apartheid Museum (brilliantly evocative), Pretoria (nice a few decades ago, deteriorating ever since), downtown Jo’burg (woeful), the northern suburbs (rich and white) and Soweto, where we took a bike tour (distinctly not the type of bike tour Americans are familiar with!) and spent a night. The visit was capped off by a one-day mad dash around the city talking with foreign correspondents from U.S. newspapers. Somehow the stars aligned perfectly that day and we were able to go from the Baltimore Sun to the New York Times to the Washington Post. Needless to say, I was in heaven.
The following weekend included getting ice cream four times in three days (just doing my patriotic duty as an American and chubbying up), taking a day trip (to see more penguins, hike to a waterfall and drive along the coast), visiting a township and orphanage (see below) on World TB Day and attending a concert featuring the most joyous music I’ve ever heard. The Soweto String Quartet performed at the botanical gardens here, and between the music and the setting (and the wine!) I got up and danced. (If you think that was out of character, wait until what’s coming.)
Per the American tradition of stressing yourself out before going on vacation, I nearly got an ulcer the week before our fall break. But now I can report that it is physically possible to write a 12-page paper in one day; that I’ll be in New York this summer interning with Time (if you’ll be in the city, too, please let me know) and that the Vagina Monologues makes men uncomfortable the world over.
The trip I incidentally deprived myself of sleep for was to Namibia, the second least-densely populated country in the world (can you name the first? Answer below). What the country lacks in population it makes up for in attractions. Over 10 days, three friends and I drove more than 3,000 miles to the world’s second-largest canyon (Fish River Canyon), world’s highest sand dunes (Sossusvlei), a ritzy coastal town known for adventure sports (Swakopmund, where Angelina fled with Brad to have her kid) and one of the best wildlife-viewing national parks around (Etosha). The trip was action-packed and included a lot of firsts for me: camping, playing leap frog down a sand dune, eating pears, sea kayaking among thousands of seals, nearly running over a warthog, eating canned food incessantly (including canned meat that included beef hearts – vegetarian friends, please take mercy on my soul), playing Frisbee in the desert and – are you ready? – skydiving. Now I consider myself a pretty straitlaced guy, but I somehow got caught up in the adventuresome, free-flying spirit of the trip and – oops – ended up jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. I was eerily serene beforehand – perhaps my nervous system was in shock? – but the jump was absolutely amazing. It made ostrich riding seem lame (and ostrich riding, as was been well documented here, is NOT lame :). There is the powerful and pure adrenaline rush of falling out of the sky at 175 MPH for 35 seconds, and then there is the serene and graceful act of looking out over the desert and the ocean as you glide back down to earth. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. The main parachute for my friend Reeves, who went five minutes before me, and his tandem partner did not open, so they had to land with the reserve chute. Thing is, the reserve chute is smaller so the descent is faster. Their landing was awkward and my friend broke his lower left leg. Reeves went before my friend Andrea and I, and we didn’t know about his state when we took off . The skydiving company had boasted a 100% safety record, as had the place next door. At that neighboring place, however, a girl and her tandem partner died the following day when their chute didn’t open. So will I skydive again? Probably not. Was it amazing? Absolutely.
As skydiving and 3,000-mile road trips and are exciting and school is not, the return to class was not welcome. And so I left. We returned from Namibia late on a Tuesday. On Friday, I saw that Zimbabwe was going to celebrate its independence day on Wednesday. I thought it would be quite interesting to visit a country with independence but no freedom (thanks be to Comrade Mugabe). Plus, I was curious what an 80% unemployment rate and 1700% inflation rate – the oft-quoted numbers media folks use to show the calamitous state of the Zimbabwean economy – actually look like. So on Monday, I carpet-bombed the inboxes of everyone I knew with a Zimbabwe connection. And on Tuesday, I was in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. I stayed for 48 hours, and I had a tremendous experience both as a tourist (which is legal) and as a journalist (which is not). I rode on a minibus (a 15-seat van) with 22 people and one chicken (alive). I met with Embassy officials and ‘toured’ the downtown area, which included the National Gallery of Zimbabwe (which has a collection of 3 Picassos and 1 Cezanne, believe it or not). I stayed away from the Independence Day ceremony where Mugabe spoke – I received uniform advice to stay away – but I met with lots of people, including a community organizer who was one of the victims of the government’s beating of opposition members last month. The meetings were very informative, if not a wee bit nerve-wracking. As some of you may know, foreign journalists are not allowed in Zimbabwe. When a Time magazine reporter went last month, he was jailed and starved for five days (story: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1609808,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner ). So I did my best to lay low. As most journalists are white males and there are about 3 white males left among Zimbabwe’s population, this wasn’t too easy. But I took some precautions – including wrapping up all my notes and sticking them in my squeezed-out travel toothpaste container to get through customs – and made it home fine. All in all, it was an exhilarating trip, by far the most immersed in African culture I’ve felt since arriving. You may have read the doomsday forecast put out by the media, but the scene on the ground is not apocalyptic, at least not on the same urgent timetable reporters tend to use. I’ve included the article I wrote about my trip (a journalism scholarship paid for the jaunt, so I had to produce something) and I’d be happy to share more personal observations if you’d like.
So what’s next? A deep breath, some sleep tonight and then I’m off to Lesotho tomorrow. It’s a small country smack in the middle of South Africa. Apparently it’s frigid there (we’re moving toward winter here) and given that we’re going on an overnight pony trek, this could present a problem. We’re also hoping to spend a night with a Peace Corps volunteer serving in the country. Maybe she’ll be able to defrost us.
Anyhow, there are numerous other anecdotes I could share with you (how Jo’Burg is so dangerous you leave a car length ahead of you during the day when stopped at red lights (room to escape in case someone tries to carjack you) and don’t even bother stopping the car at night, or how it was over 100 degrees in the shade at Fish River Canyon), but I’ll let you go. There are lots of pictures up on Flickr (directions below) so hopefully they’ll flesh out the story. If you’d like to hear about something else, let me know. All I ask is that you tell me some news about what you’re up to. Life is obviously pretty spectacular here, but I think of home and all of you often, so updates are welcome.
Have a great weekend,
Take Care,
Brendan

* A note on the orphanage I visited. A Philadelphia-area woman studied in Cape Town a few years ago and spent some time while she was here volunteering at an orphanage. Not surprisingly, she felt terrible when she had to leave and go back home since the work she had been doing would go undone. Surprisingly, she started a charity upon graduating college, moved to South Africa and now raises money for three orphanages in the township. She’s a wonderful woman, and I’m trying to help her however possible (this afternoon I photographed one of the soccer games of a league she organized for the city children’s homes). If you’d like more information or to give them a hand (this a rare opportunity when you’ll be able to see (or hear about) the impact your donation has) visit www.chosa.org.

** The least densely populated country in the world is Mongolia. Two points for correct answers (redeemable for postcards if you send me your address).

Hello from Cape Town

2007-03-21T00:14:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone!
Yep, I'm still in Africa, still alive and well. Sorry for the gap in
communications – I know I mistakenly left some of you with the
impression in the last e-mail that I'd become deeply religious and run
off with a South African girl named Noma, and, well, I apologize for
that. To be clear, I'm still floating about in a religious-less
atmosphere, and still single. (And we won't return to those topics
anytime soon!)
Anyhow, the last few weeks have been full of fun events, exciting
and challenging, too. The most prominent event has been my first
vacation (can you take a vacation from a vacation?). Four friends and
myself rented a car and spent four days driving the Garden Route, a
stretch of beautiful coastal towns east of Cape Town. I was the
primary driver (most cars are manual here), which suited me just fine.
The whole 'left side of the road' situation really wasn't a problem,
mostly because we spent our time on freeways (and when we were in
towns, I had four backseat drivers screaming, 'LEFT!!!'). Our first
stop was in Oudtshoorn, or, as it's more popularly known as, the
Ostrich Capital of the World. We went for a midnight swim at our
hostel, which may have been very summer campish, but seeing as I never
went to summer camp and had never stayed at a hostel, was quite a
thrill for me. The following morning we had scrambled ostrich eggs for
breakfast and headed out to the ostrich farm, primed and ready to
fulfill the primary reason I came to South Africa – to ride an ostrich
(I kid, but not as much as you might think – I had really been looking
forward to this!). Alas, there had been some rain overnight (yes, it
does rain here) and the attendant said if we tried to ride the ostrich
it would slip and we would break our necks. As there was no indication
that she was anything but completely serious, we turned away,
heartbroken, crestfallen, and all those other sad compound adjectives.
All good things come to those who wait, however, so we traced back our
route to the outskirts of town to Highgate Ostrich Farm, where I
nearly achieved nirvana. We arrived in time to catch a tour, which
told us everything we'd ever like to know about ostriches (they live
about 40-50 years, lay eggs every two weeks during high season and
have two toes on each foot, fyi). Then we fed the ostriches, which
gave us an indication of their aggressiveness (if you thought they
were odd, imbalanced creatures with small brains who are incapable of
swift jabs – as I had – you thought wrong). Afterward we stepped on
ostrich eggs – they're 2mm thick, which means they don't crack (even
though you swear they're going to) – and readied ourselves for The
Main Event. Our guide, Emmanuel, led us into a 30 ft. by 30 ft pen,
which contained about 20 ostriches, four farm employees and a dozen
tourists. The employees grabbed an ostrich with a metal contraption,
and put a small cloth bag over its head (please don't tell PETA).
Then, one by one, my friends and I climbed a stepladder, grabbed a
wing, threw our legs over the ostriches' back and grabbed the other
wing. The farm employee pulled the bag off, gave the ostrich a smack
and – WHEW! – we were off! I've been fortunate to experience many
enjoyable activities over the years, but I can't say anything measures
up to riding an ostrich. I laughed (giggled uncontrollably, really)
the entire time, even when the ostrich decided to stop short and I
went flying off head-first. (Pictures on flickr) If any of you come to
South Africa in the future, please promise me: Highgate Ostrich Farm.
The rest of the trip was great, too (though by comparison, how can
anything measure up to ostrich riding?). We went on an adventure tour
of a cave complex that required you to walk sideways, crawl on
all-fours, shimmy on your stomach and slide feet first in order to
make it through (one poor guy got stuck, which was only quite funny
once we had pried him loose). We went ziplining through a forest – you
wore a harness, they connected your harness to a cable that was
secured around two trees, you stepped off a platform and pounded your
chest like Tarzan as you went flying through the forest to the other
tree. There were also unscripted times – encountering two dozen
baboons hanging out on a secluded highway, meeting various wanderers
at hostels who were hitching their way through Africa, frolicking in
the Indian Ocean – that provided great memories. I was fortunate to
have found a great group of people to go on the trip with, which made
the activities matter less because I enjoyed the company so much.
Back at university, life goes on. Lectures are beginning to lose
their appeal (the topics are fascinating, the professors are not), so
I've supplemented academics with activities. I went surfing one
afternoon with the surf club, which was a tremendous amount of fun.
It's harder than it looks, but it's just as much fun (or at least
that's what I took away from the split-second I spent standing on my
surfboard). I've also begun writing for the newspaper. I wrote two
stories for next week's issue, one on the women's basketball coach and
one on the chancellor at the university. I asked around during
orientation who ran the place, and no one seemed to know (even South
African students). This lack of awareness became a theme and so my
story idea was to crack the case. I found out the chancellor here is
much more of a figurehead than in the States – the vice-chancellor
runs things. So I decided to survey 100 UCT students to see if they
could name either the chancellor or vice-chancellor. Only 12 could
name the vice-chancellor, and 17 could name the chancellor, even
though she is Graca Machel, also known as Mrs. Nelson Mandela! I've
asked to interview both the chancellor and vice-chancellor, so we'll
see if anything comes of that.
At the top of my e-mail I mentioned there have been some challenges,
too (and while ostrich riding is tricky, I wouldn't quite classify it
as a challenge). Instead, I refer to the work I'm doing in the
townships (read: shantytowns) that surround Cape Town. My volunteer
work is minimal, once a week basically, so I'm not up for sainthood or
anything. But the time I've spent there has really been humbling and
provided a moral purpose for my trip. Every Wednesday morning I teach
a basic Microsoft Office class to 18-25-year-olds, some of whom have
never used a computer. Unemployment in the township, Nyanga, is around
70 percent, so it's critical for these young adults to attain some
basic computer proficiency so they become more employable. I've
developed quite an attachment to them, and we're making great strides.
Teaching is infinitely more difficult than I had believed, but when
Thulani types a paragraph, formats it and then cuts and pastes, well,
it gives me a great feeling.
The other township experience – and then I'll stop, I promise – was
being a guest speaker at a high school conference on youth and
democracy. I ran into a few women at the grocery store a few weeks
back who wore 'South African Youth Ministers Programme' shirts. I
asked about the program and was told it's a non-profit that hires
unemployed adults, trains them in citizenship and democracy and places
them in township high schools, where they advise the 'youth ministers'
who are elected by their peers (ministers in the governmental sense,
not religious). Anyhow, last Saturday was a gathering of 60 or so
youth ministers from various high schools. After exchanging a few
e-mails with the women about how I could get involved, I was asked to
be the guest speaker. I was the first American many of them ever met,
and so we had a great cultural exchange. I spoke briefly, they asked
lots of questions and then in the afternoon I sat in on a debate about
whether pregnant students should be allowed to attend high school.
Some students got really into it, standing on chairs and screaming in
Xhosa (a click language) against or for. It was quite an afternoon,
and I felt proud to have the rare opportunity to represent my country
in such a unique forum.
Alrighty, folks. Thanks for taking the time to read this behemoth.
I'll try to stay more on top of these so they don't get so long. Our
next e-mail will include descriptions of my joining the Zimbabwe
Students Society, this weekend's trip to Johannesburg and our fall
break trip, which is essentially a road trip through Namibia ('A road
trip through Namibia?! you ask. 'Yes, read the next e-mail,' I answer
:)
Hope everything is going well back home. Feel free to clue me in on
what you're up to – even in digital form, your e-mails are a welcome
reminder of home.
Take care,
Brendan

Picutres have been added. Instructions are below.

Instructions to find photos
- Go to www.flickr.com (no typo, there's really no 'e')
- Click the link in the top-left corner that says 'Already a member?
Sign in' (I know you may not be a member, but proceed anyway)
- You will most likely be prompted for a Yahoo! ID. Enter saphotos.
The name has been created specifically for you to view my photos. The
password is photossa.
- Sign in, and then click the down arrow next to the search link in
the right-hand corner. Choose Flickr members.
- Enter lowebrendan into the search field.
- My number of photos (80) will appear next to the word photos. Click photos.
- My photos will appear. If you want more organization, click the sets
on the right-hand side of the screen.
- From there you can see photos from the Garden Route.
- Enjoy!

www.ctadventures.blogspot.com

Fourth Post from Cape Town

2007-02-26T10:49:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone,
'Tis another week, and another chronicle. We had some more balance in the past few days. Or, put more frankly, school started and life is getting a lot more mundane. Lectures are beginning, societies (i.e. clubs) are meeting, I even have a group presentation on Thursday. Even so, the days of sitting on the beach have not gone out with the tide. I still went to the beach this week, I just brought along my course readings.
What clubs did I join, you ask? A slew, I answer. To date, I belong to Habitat for Humanity, Varsity (the biweekly student newspaper), the History and Currrent Affairs Society (all the cool kids are doing it ;) and SHAWCO, a huge student group that for 60 years has run welfare programs in the townships (it's a great organization - see www.shawco.org). For sports, I did the surf club (!) and the soccer club.
The soccer club met on Thursday and, whew, did those guys serve me up a reminder that I hadn't played soccer in nearly a decade. It was largely a mishmash of European graduate students and African undergrads, and then, there in the corner, the pasty, bespectacled American in running shoes, me. As they mentioned positions that didn't exist when I played and did tricks with the ball that had previously appeared impossible, I felt like an anachronism, as out of place as a brussel sprout in a fruit salad. Nonetheless, once Uup from Holland lent me an extra pair of boots (i.e. cleats) and we started playing, I began to speak the language once again. I wasn't necessarily fluent, but I fell into a groove of sorts and held my own, even registering an assist. I give it another go tomorrow when tryouts begin for the premier team (ha!).
The overarching reason I bothered joining the soccer club was the same reason I went to church last night - the experience and the community. In my first e-mail nearly a month ago, I said something to the effect of 'I'm a bit impatient, but I'm looking forward to settling in, kind of sinking more into some of the culture and the consciousness of the area and the country.' Time has that effect, but initiative also helps, accelerates the process even. Vacations, which this essentially is, just a 4.5 month one, are made up of memories, which are based on experiences. When enough time goes by, any experience - regardless of whether the actual event/incident was positive or negative - becomes a fond memory (or at least something to laugh about). That's why my general mentality here is to have as many experiences here as possible. The soccer club and church - a relatively new, non-denominational Christian one nearby - were not worthwhile simply for what I did while I was there - pull my groin and sing songs in different languages, respectively - but for whom I did it amongst. Both activities were shared with people of all different ages and races. That's not always the case here, not by a long shot. When I had dinner and a movie at the mall Tuesday, I was almost exclusively in a white audience. When I went to a braai (i.e. BBQ) Thursday, I was almost exclusively among American study abroad students. When I went to high tea at the Mount Nelson hotel Friday, I was almost exclusively among white, upper-class tourists. All events were enjoyable, but if I simply hopped around town from white spot to white spot - which one could easily do here - I wouldn't be fully experiencing Cape Town and South Africa. So I hit some of the black spots, too, so I can at least be a dalmatian and not a yellow lab (a dalmation has black spots - get it? Get it?! :).
I'll talk more about race in subsequent e-mails. It's a fascinating topic, one that is surprisingly and refreshingly openly discussed here, and one where I think you see a lot of personal backgrounds coming into play. But before I digress completely or bore you utterly, I'd like to close with the tale of Noma. (Her full name is Nomandla, but the 'ndl' is not as easy to pronounce as you think - her name is Xhosa, one of the 'click' languages). Anyhow, Noma is in my Policy and Administration course. On the first day of class, she asked me some basic question and then, simply to extend the conversation, I asked her what book she was reading. It was Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird.' I'd also been reading a book (yes, without the New York Times around, I've had to resort to books - blah!) and she asked me what I was reading. It was Nadine Gordimer's 'July's People.' I was struck at how a South African student was reading an American author and an American student was reading a South African author. We talked after class, and do so every day now. It's the favorite part of my day. I'm not in love, now, now, and I know my anecdote must sound eerily similar to something out of a Hugh Grant movie. But she maintains no pretenses and is disarmingly honest. (The first time we talked she said she was scared to go to America because it was a "ticking time bomb" and she believed she was much safer in South Africa (at which I couldn't help but laugh). Sometimes we talk about how laundry was taken, sometimes we debate whether Americans are as self-centered as we are perceived to be. The conversations aren't profound, necessarily, but they're pure in the sense that a young South African and a young American, who heretofore had been living completely separate lives, are realizing that just because our lives were being led on different tracks doesn't mean those tracks weren't parallel. Our ages, races, sexes, nationalities, mother tongues, they're all different, but our interests and values are similar, and they bring us together. (Maybe church actually got to me!)
Alrighty, that's all for now, folks. Thanks for sticking with me and reading and replying. It's great to hear from each of you and maintain the ties to back home. They're not quite as nourishing as the brownies my mom sent me (delicious even south of the equator!), but they're very satisfying nonetheless. :)
Take care,
Brendan

Picutres have been added. Instructions are below.

Instructions to find photos
- Go to www.flickr.com (no typo, there's really no 'e')
- Click the link in the top-left corner that says 'Already a member?
Sign in' (I know you may not be a member, but proceed anyway)
- You will most likely be prompted for a Yahoo! ID. Enter saphotos.
The name has been created specifically for you to view my photos. The
password is photossa.
- Sign in, and then click the down arrow next to the search link in
the right-hand corner. Choose Flickr members.
- Enter lowebrendan into the search field.
- My number of photos (80) will appear next to the word photos. Click photos.
- My photos will appear. If you want more organization, click the sets
on the right-hand side of the screen.
- From there you can see photos from Stellenbosch, the wine region 30
minutes outside of Cape Town, and Clifton Beach, one of the nicer
beaches within the city limits. (Note: the photos named 'Khayelitsha'
in the Stellenbosch section are of the townships the proliferate
around the city)
- Enjoy!

Third Post from Cape Town

2007-02-21T10:17:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone,
A week has passed since our last contact, and I'm happy to report
that that time has been robbery-free, though at one particular point I
did feel like a piece of live bait about to be tossed into a frenzied
school of barracudas. But we'll get to that.
University only began in earnest today, a watermark that symbolizes
the transition from a very exciting, fun, sensory pleasing lifestyle
to more of a placid, intellectually stimulating existence
(hopefully!). Both should be enjoyable and worthwhile, though to mark
the sadness of having our free time tied up in classes - courses here
tend to meet 3-5 times a week, as opposed to 1-3 in the U.S. - a
friend and I today booked two trips for March: one to Johannesburg and
one along the Garden Route, a particularly aesthetically pleasing
stretch of coastal highway (including a place to go ostrich riding!)
in the southwestern part of the country (we're renting a car).
I know, I know, it's a very difficult life I'm leading down here.
Last week I had the chore of grinding out the following schedule:
Monday: Dinner and a movie (Little Children w/ Kate Winslet - very good!)
Tuesday: Beach, where we were supposed to take a surfing lesson but
the current was too strong and the shark watcher had poor visibility
(that's right, they employ people here - and have an entire
color-coded flag system a la the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security's
colorful chart - to monitor the whereabouts of sharks off the coast)
Wednesday: Spectacular day trip of wine tastings through Stellenbosch,
South Africa's Napa Valley
Thursday: Take a breather (by watching Sweet Home Alabama, which was on TV here)
Friday: Professional soccer game
Saturday: Hike Table Mountain
Sunday: Afternoon concert at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens
Pity me, indeed.
A few notes, in reverse chronological order. The concert setting was
spectacular - in a huge botanical garden on the side of a mountain -
but the music was subpar. Not only was the bank playing punk rock, but
they were singing in Afrikaans! Loud noise just becomes a cacophony
when produced in a foreign language. As for hiking up a mountain: in
case you haven't noticed, my family has never been featured in Field
and Stream. We're an urbane bunch, more inclined to hike across (as in
city blocks) than up (as in mountains). Admittedly, I was slightly
petrified of hiking up a mountain. That may or may not have to do with
a distaste of heights and poor balance. Alas, my fears were allayed by
a trail that was steep, but not the type of
narrow-path-along-the-edge-of-a-cliff nightmare I'd envisioned.
And finally, the barracudas. While still in the States, I decided I'd
like to attend a match of each of the big national sports here:
cricket, rugby and soccer. The Cape Town Ajax (soccer) happened to be
playing Friday night, so we got together eight people and took a
minibus to the stadium. Little did we know that a) the stadium was in
the projects and b) no one arrives early to soccer games. Most folks
operate here under 'African time,' which is much like 'Lowe time,'
that is, a wee bit late :) So the minibus driver, a saint named Al,
stopped the car in front of a gate near the stadium. Outside the
minibus, about a dozen teenagers swarmed. One, who (I kid you not) had
one eye, came up to the driver's side window begging for money. The
eight of us simultaneously started begging to be driven home. It's
difficult to convey the tension that hung in the air. Perhaps my crime
antennae are now hyper-alert. Perhaps the teens just wanted a small
handout to get into the game or for a meal. But there seemed to be a
particular desperation about them, a sense that they, shall we say,
didn't always limit their actions to those which fall within the legal
boundaries. I feel more confident asserting such an opinion since the
driver took it upon himself to talk to the security people (he spoke
another language, but the word 'Americans' was definitely used),
thereby allowing us entry to the stadium through the players' gate.
The driver then proceeded to park the car, escort us to the ticket
booth and then to the gate, whereupon we were given the kind of
frisking by security personnel that would have the ACLU filing a
lawsuit within the hour. As Al predicted, we were safe inside the
stadium. The only other white person in the stadium was the Ajax
goalie, but no one bothered us (mostly because the stadium was 70%
empty and the fans in attendance were too busy alternately smoking
massive amounts of marijuana and incessantly blowing plastic horns.
How their lungs manage both, I do not know.). We even made a friend, a
fan named Charlie who we talked to about soccer and crime and a whole
range of things.
Now that I've taken up the rest of your Monday, I'll bring this
missive to a close. Do know, however, that I've put some pictures
online. More will be added in the days and weeks to come, but it's a
start. Instructions on how to find them are below.
Hope this e-mail finds you well, perhaps still basking in the
afterglow of Valentine's Day (which they do, believe it or not,
celebrate here in some quarters). As long as you're basking in some
light - I hear it's freezing there! Thanks for all the correspondence
in return. Feel free to send any questions or suggestions for
exploration. I'd be happy to take them up.
Take care,
Brendan

Instructions to find photos
- Go to www.flickr.com (no typo, there's really no 'e')
- Click the link in the top-left corner that says 'Already a member?
Sign in' (I know you may not be a member, but proceed anyway)
- You will most likely be prompted for a Yahoo! ID. Enter saphotos.
The name has been created specifically for you to view my photos. The
password is photossa.
- Sign in, and then click the down arrow next to the search link in
the right-hand corner. Choose Flickr members.
- Enter lowebrendan into the search field.
- My number of photos (80) will appear next to the word photos. Click photos.
- My photos will appear. If you want more organization, click the sets
on the right-hand side of the screen.
- From there you can see photos from Stellenbosch, the wine region 30
minutes outside of Cape Town, and Clifton Beach, one of the nicer
beaches within the city limits. (Note: the photos named 'Khayelitsha'
in the Stellenbosch section are of the townships the proliferate
around the city)
- Enjoy!

Second post from Cape Town

2007-02-21T09:51:00.000+02:00

Hello again everyone,
Class hasn't started yet, so the last week has provided enough
adventure to garner another e-mail. Once 'varsity,' as they call it,
begins, perhaps I'll cease these weekly chronicles. Hopefully you
enjoy hearing about the experience as much as I enjoy sharing it (and
if not, we're a bit out of luck, as these don't come with an
unsubscribe option :) Forgive my indulgence...
In any case, the last week has provided highs and lows. I went to the
beach one day, a gorgeous plot of sand at the foot of a mountain. I
drove through townships, the shantytowns that ring (and imperil) Cape
Town, and took a walking tour through the city centre. I registered
for classes (three politics courses and a sociology course - Poverty,
Development and Globalisation) and did some research. Many of you
replied to my last e-mail with queries about the nightlife here, and
so I complied by going out three times in four nights. One night there
were fire jugglers performing on the sand pit that is at the center of
a bar called Cool Runnings. Another night people danced on the bar at
Jo'burg (perhaps not surprisingly, my feet stayed firmly planted to
the floor. I subscribe to the Sam I Am theory of dancing - I will not
dance in a club, I will not dance on a bar...). And the third night I
hung out on the balcony overlooking Long Street, the Bourbon
Street-esque area downtown (without as much of the debauchery). So,
needless to say, the nightlife here is alive and well.
As for the lows, alas, Cape Town is both a gorgeous, luxurious
playground of the rich and famous (Madonna has a home here) and a
poverty-stricken breeding ground of crime (the word you hear
frequently in describing the city is 'complex'). The two worlds, which
traditionally (but increasingly less so) have been inhabited by whites
and blacks, respectively, seldom mix. Most homes (including our
cottage-type home) have concrete walls surrounding them and gates in
front. Some have barbed wire or razor blades on top. Almost all have
'ADT Armed Response' security signs out front. I have four keys to my
house.
There are ways to minimize the threat but not to eliminate it. I
learned as much Thursday. A friend and I took a bus downtown to see
the city centre and Bo Kaap, a Muslim area with brightly colored homes
that overlooks the city. We had extra time, so we decided to find
parliament. As we walked in front of the provincial legislature
building around 2:30pm, a man took hold of my arm and, to make a long
story short, told me to give him my money. At first I was shocked,
half expecting Ashton Kutcher to pop out of the bushes and tell me I
had just been punk'd. Something so brazen as a mid-afternoon, downtown
robbery was incomprehensible to me, but he (as well as the man behind
him and the alleged four others he claimed were watching me) was quite
serious. I gave him about $17 and left unharmed, ultimately more
shocked than scared. The shock turned to anger on Saturday, when
another pair of men tried to rob my friend and I as we walked to the
Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. In both instances I took numerous
precautions to safeguard myself - wearing plain, raggy clothing,
leaving my map and camera behind, etc etc. Perhaps my glasses (they're
rare here) and accent or sunburn gave me away, or maybe I was simply a
random victim. The incidents have certainly put me alert. I'm not
going to stop going downtown - I didn't come here to sit in my prison
cage of a home - but I have to find ways to reduce the risk I face. Of
course, some people have lived here for years and never had an
incident, so my 1:1 downtown visit:robbery ratio will hopefully go
down soon.
That's all for now. Time to figure out tonight (likely a movie -
'Rocky Balboa' is really big here right now). Wednesday is wine
tasting, Friday classes start and Saturday morning I hike Table
Mountain. Should be fun.
Hope all is well back home for each of you. I've heard it's quite
cold in the States. I've also heard we're edging toward war with Iran.
Perhaps a robbery is not so bad. It's all relevant, I suppose.

First post from Cape Town

2007-02-21T09:43:00.000+02:00

Hey everyone!
It's somewhat surreal to type this, but I'm in Africa! Internet is a
bit hard to come across here, so I'm in an Internet cafe in
Rondebosch, the university town a 5/10 minute drive outside of Cape
Town. And I'm very happy/proud to be able to say that I'm here. Life
sure isn't easy down here, not even if you have some money to make it
easier (one of the many differences between here and the U.S.).
The beginning of the trip proved as much. The flight out of the U.S.
was delayed four hours, so I missed my connection in Johannesburg and
spent my first night in Jo'burg. The silver lining was a bunch of
other students were in the same boat, so we got to know each other in
that awkward I-don't-really-know-you-but-we're-going-through-the-same-radical-experience-so-let's-small-talk
way. Or something like that :)
I live in a house a 15 minute walk from campus with four Americans
(from McCalister College, Vassar, Univ. of Illinois and Yale) and
three Norwegians (one of whom goes to school in Paris). Our neighbors
include a German student, and many of the Univ. of Cape Town students
are from outside the country (predominantly Zimbabwe, it seems) so I'm
certainly being exposed to other cultures, which is the point, of
course, and my favorite part of the experience so far.
Cape Town does appear to be gorgeous (I've only been here a few days,
so definitive conclusions should probably be kept to a minimum). The
city seems nice, on the smaller side, quaint perhaps, but the area
surrounding it (the Cape peninsula) is just spectacular. Think the
French Riviera/Amalfi Coast/Pacific Coast Highway, just a little more
rugged. We hiked to the Cape of Good Hope yesterday and it was
unbelievable (so were the penguins we saw on the beach!).
Speaking of rugged, I was told many times before I left how
developed/western/white Cape Town is, and I don't doubt those people's
assessments. But without a proper frame of reference (i.e. experience
in any other African city) it's hard for me to agree. For an African
city, Cape Town is most likely more developed, Western and white, but
compared to San Fran or Chicago or Paris or anywhere I've been, it's a
whole new ballgame. Sometimes that's really exhilerating, sometimes
it's a bit daunting. The longer I'm here and grow accustomed to it,
the more comfortable I'll become and the more exhillerating it will
be, I suppose.
So there are some preliminary observations. Everything is off to as
good a start as it possibly could be. Sometimes I feel like a college
freshman, as you may imagine. But the longer I'm here (and the more
patience I muster) the more I'll get to know people, the better I'll
get to know them, the more places I'll be able to see, the more
experiences I'll be able to have, etc.
I'll get pictures out soon, hopefully, as they're much more
captivating than any words. I hope everything is going well for
everyone - I think of each of you more often than you may think.
Take care and feel free to write back. I'll do my best to respond in
short order and it will be good to hear what everyone is up to in the
meantime.

Testing 1, 2, 3...

2007-01-26T10:19:00.000+02:00

Here's the innaugural post. Just making sure we're ready to roll...