Lesson Nine: How to Climb Mountains and Feed Children

So, I was really bad about journaling in South Africa, and by really bad I mean I didn’t journal at all, so this will neither be as long nor as detailed as Namibia, because I was really great at journaling there. Sorry it's all in one chunk, but i've dechunkified it twice and the internet screws up, so I'm not wasting my time. deal with it.

I really enjoyed my time in Africa. While Cape Town felt very European and safe because you could do whatever you wanted and never have to leave the port area, it was easy to become complacent and miss out on a real African experience. We pretty much stuck to the touristy stuff, but it was a good time nonetheless. I think when you are young and female and white, your ability to really go out among the people is limited because of safety issues.
That said, the fact that apartheid only ended 14 years ago speaks to enormous progress on South Africa’s part. I think the rest of the world helped it, as the US’ big civil rights struggle came decades before (and even before that, Civil War-wise), and Europe is far ahead of the US (and therefore everywhere else) in terms of race relations. Our guide on the wine tour (more on that later) gave us a really honest and detailed explanation of his opinions of race in South Africa, which was refreshing because often people that have been on the causal end of civil struggle (he was white) have the tendency to gloss over their part in it with the “cog in the machine” defense. He clearly still had some bias about native Africans, but he seemed genuinely concerned and a little embarrassed about that bias, and it was nice that he shared that with us, as no one wants to admit they’re a racist.
It was really nice to just stay in one place for a week. We were still clearly tourists, but we had a little more time to learn the port and plan things out and generally get our bearings. It is amazing to be able to go to all these countries in just one semester, but only going for four or five days at a time really cuts down on your ability to interact with locals and learn the culture, simply because- like you would do your first week or two in any new locale- we need that time to do the tourist stuff. Even the tourist stuff is really cool, like touring the wine country and hiking table mountain, but it does take time. If we were in one place for the whole semester, we’d have time to get comfortable in our neighborhood, meet some local friends, etc. but being as migrant as we are we’ve really only got time for the essentials.
Now I will try and go through my adventures as chronologically as possible. Sorry in advance if the rest of this makes you feel like I’m talking to you like you’re dumb, I just finished the kids’ blog about Namibia so I’m still in “hey there little pirates!” mode.
Okay, first day: We got off the ship after relatively little hassle. Carrie and Marcella both had FDPs (the field practica, teacher-led educational business), so I went to lunch and the aquarium with my friend Jenny. The aquarium was pretty cool. We got there just in time to see them feed the penguins, which were SO CUTE. Right after that, they announced they were feeding the turtle and the rays in the “predator tank”, so of course we went to see that. It was pretty awesome.
They trained this 20-year-old turtle to bonk a black and white disc thing with its head, and when it did, they fed it. Smart turtle. There were a few rays in the tank, but one ENORMOUS ray weighed over 450lbs. Seriously huge. When it went to get its food (from people scuba diving IN THE PREDATOR TANK WITH SHARKS, coolest job ever), it completely overtook the diver until you could no longer see her behind the huge ray. I guess a lot of the time the sharks decide they are hungry for the rays lunch, and although the sharks only eat once a week, and sometimes as little as every three weeks, they try to nibble on lunch that is not theirs. It is the second diver’s job to POKE THE SHARKS WITH A STICK to get them to go away. I don’t know about her, but I would be sure I had great insurance.
The aquarium was pretty small, but the predator tank was huge and round and had floor-to-ceiling warp-proof plastic, so it was really cool to see absolutely everything. There was also an amazing “kelp forest” with huge stands of brown kelp just swaying in the underwater-fan-induced breeze, with huge fish and a big school of tiny fish just floating about. I took some great pictures that I’m sure I will force you to sit down and look at for hours on end when I get home.
That night, we hit up Mitchell’s Pub, which yes I know, is a Scottish pub in South Africa, not very indigenous of me, but it was close to the port and made a magical libation called “Old Wobbly”, which is a particularly apt description of their 22-proof beer. We went out to dinner at a nice restaurant in the enormous right-next-to-the-ship mall- I had a tasty but relatively unremarkable seafood platter. Only awesome thing is, the US has only the calamari rings and squid babies, but they have entire calamari STEAKS in SA. I had what looked like mozzarella sticks of calamari that was tender and delicious and not at all chewy as US calamari is sometimes found to be.
The next day was spent in general exploration of the Cape Towny harbor area, just walking around and popping into the odd store. We went back to the ship for lunch and decided to hit up a rugby game that (we thought) was happening at Newlands stadium very nearby. Nine of us (I knew Marcella obviously, and Steph and Emily, my friends from voyage book) took two cabs-yes, we were cramped- to Newlands, arriving there nice and early at 1:30 for the 3pm kickoff. NO ONE WAS THERE. Obviously something was amiss. What was amiss was that the game was not at Newlands anymore, but had been changed to some other stadium near Stellenbosch, a town about half an hour away. Well, the cab drivers said sure, we’ll take you there and then hang out while you watch the game, then take you back. It took us an hour and a half to get there. Our cab guy was driving SUPER slowly and had almost no gas left, plus he didn’t really know how to get there and was following the other cab dude. We finally got there, watched the rugby game- which was SO BADASS, rugby is hardcore- and then headed back to the taxis. The ride back took only 45 minutes, including a stop for gas and a scenic drive through the winelands. It was an amusing misadventure. Rugby is awesome and crazy and violently entertaining.
Sunday during the day was spent climbing Table Mountain, which was awesome. We took a cab to the bottom and started a two-hour hike past gorgeous waterfalls, seriously steep rock stairs, and a few “scenic vista” stops for Carrie to use her inhaler, as the air started thinning and having our friend fall off Table Mountain due to asthma would really put a damper on our Sunday. It was actually pretty tough going, as it was mostly straight up, with slight terracing and a few giant rocks to step on. The view from the top was PHENOMENAL. We saw Cape Town on one side and cliffs and the gorgeous blue ocean on the other. We took the cable car down, which rotated as it went down the mountain for optimum 360-degree gorgeousness.
Sunday night they had 50% off cocktails and sushi at this gorgeous and amazing restaurant, Sevruga. Their rainbow rolls were the best I have ever had, and they had these things called salmon roses, with a little salmon rolled with a bit of rice on top, plus some aioli and roe…so tasty. I missed sushi, and while I wanted to hold back and wait until Japan so I could taste the real deal, this was too good to pass up. Nikki, you will be proud of me- I even tried salmon and tuna sashimi, and loved it! Not loved the tuna, but it was okay, and I really loved the salmon. I also had a fantastic blood orange mojito that I am going to try my best to recreate for you upon my return. Later we went to this restaurant called Quay 4 and partook of a 3.5 liter beer (don’t worry, it was a large group)…it was awesome.
On Monday me, Carrie, Marcella and our friend Sam did Operation Hunger, which was absolutely incredible. It was not so incredible that my camera died ten minutes in, but it worked out fine. Operation Hunger’s mission is to weigh and assess the nutrition of kidlets in the townships, along with distributing food to community kitchens in the area. We spent the morning weighing about 30-some kids at a “crèche” (French actually, for nursery/day care) in the township called Los Angeles. Yes, that’s right. “LA” is just outside the big Cape Town township of Khayelitsha. We spent most of our time playing with the kids. Someone very smart brought balloons, which were a HUGE hit. The kids also really liked seeing their pictures in everyone’s digital cameras. It was so funny to see their faces light up when they recognized themselves, especially because when you took a picture of them they would either not smile or do the no-teeth not-really-smiling smile, and then bust out laughing when you showed them. We did the same thing at another, smaller crèche in Green Park, then stopped for lunch. We had box lunches, but we decided to donate them to the Green Park community food center and buy our lunches at the rest stop instead. I wish I could say this was 100% due to our altruism, but it was at least in part due to the fact that the sandwiches looked less than appetizing. Not bad like rotten, but our pampered American taste buds craved Wimpy burgers.

No matter the means, our donations had a very good end, as the kitchen workers were out and so the kids would’ve been stuck with no food. Thanks to our lunches, we were able to feed all of the kids at least a little something- a piece of sandwich, some biscuits, hunks of apple. The program director told us that most of the time, whatever the kids can scrounge up at the food center is their food for the day, and that if we hadn’t brought our lunches, the kids may not have eaten. It felt really good to be able to feed the kids, play with them, and hear them sing, it was fun to interact with them and I think they had fun hanging with us, too. Another bonus- the Green Park community has made huge strides in the last two years, as at that time, Operation Hunger found over 90% of the crèche’s children to be malnourished and this year, there were none.
Tuesday I went to Robben Island. After a very bumpy ferry ride that I almost threw up on, I got to walk through Robben Island prison and see the cell in which Nelson Mandela stayed for 13 years. In Apartheid days, the prison separated the political prisoners into followers in dorm-style cells and leaders in single cells. Mandela was in a small single cell of his own, as he was deemed someone the other political prisoners may rally around and get organized.

The most moving part of the trip for me was actually not Mandela’s cell, but the private prison complex of Robert Sobukwe. Very few people, even Black South Africans know Sobukwe’s name, despite the fact that he was Apartheid government’s Public Enemy #1. He was a proponent of non-violent protest, and when all Black and Coloured South Africans had to carry passbooks stating where they could and could not go, he arranged for a symbolic burning of all the passbooks in a single day. Unfortunately, what was meant to be a peaceful rally became the Sharpeville massacre. Police eventually opened fire on the protestors, continuing to shoot even as they ran away. Sobukwe was arrested and kept in one prison or another until his death from cancer at age 46. During his time on Robben Island, he was kept in isolation and silence, guarded by two wardens every second of every day. He died four years before the end of Apartheid, and was never able to see that he had anything but a tragic impact on Black civil rights in South Africa. I honestly got a little teary as the tour guide was telling the story, because I’ve certainly never heard of Robert Sobukwe, but now that I have, I am not likely to forget him. After that very upsetting tale, we saw a flock of really cute penguins congregating on the side of the road! Then we left.
Wednesday meant an AMAZING wine tour in Paarl (means Pearl, named so because of the smoothish rocks in the vicinity), Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. This was honestly the highlight of South Africa for me. The views of the gorgeous mountains with vineyards in front, the adorable village of Franschhoek and eating lunch in the best restaurant in Africa (seriously. Thanks, Wikipedia!) made it a super day. It was also a super day because of all the wine. We started off at KWV, which actually buys and distributes wine from a bunch of different Paarl-area vineyards, but also makes amazing brandies and a little wine of its own. Here, we learned how to pair food and wine by tasting foods that fit into broad categories like bitter (arugula), acidic (lemon), savoury (Marmite, which tastes like a thick soy sauce, on a cracker), salty (blue cheese, which I still do not enjoy) and sweet (shortbread, yum!), and then tasting the different wines to see how their flavor changed according to the foods. It was very informative, I learned a lot, and it was a good way to start off because it got us all thinking about how to taste well. Our tour guide was cool (above mentioned Afrikaner)- it was just me, Carrie, Marcella and an older Irish man named Phillip, who was not very talkative but improved in that respect as the tastings continued.
We went to LaMotte next, which makes the most delicious Sauvignon Blanc- I honestly tasted zingy green apples, a flavor I picked out thanks to our handy “this is what this should taste like” sheets. I definitely want to try and find it somewhere in the US.
We stopped for lunch in Franschhoek at Le Quartier Francais, which according to Food & Wine is the 50th best restaurant IN THE WORLD. I am inclined to agree, as everything we ate tasted wonderful. We all started with a bread and cheese platter to go with our La Chataigne Rosé, then I got an INCREDIBLE goat cheese soufflé with apple-arugula (which they call Rocket, so weird) salad. For my entrée I got lamb with orange gnocchi shaped like little scallops, which was delightful. Carrie got the best Caesar salad of her life and fried soft-shell crab, and Marcella went for a huge yellowtail steak. All of this haute cuisine for a grand total of? 75 US dollars. Total. AMAZING.
Our final tasting was at Blauuwklippen, which also has a carriage museum and was apparently not expecting our arrival. This tasting was very informal, we just picked any five we wanted and drank them. They were okay, but I think the setting and more formal air of the other two wineries was more fun and made everything taste better. Oh, ambience.
After that, we headed home on a lovely and scenic drive through the mountains, just in time to hear DESMOND TUTU! He spoke about how “bread is a much better defense than bombs,” and how Bush sucks but has a great stance on Myanmar, and was generally impish and adorably grandpa-esque. He was just very accessible, had an infectious laugh, and would sometimes hop or skip around and get really excited about the things he was talking about. It was really a gift to be able to see him.
The last day was spent trying to watch Grey’s on YouTube in an internet café (I know. I’m obsessed. It’s bad. Whatever.), grocery shopping, and spending my last Rand on a few nice souvenirs and gifts. When we boarded the ship for good, we got a great surprise from a township choir! They sang traditional African songs, the South African national anthem, and were really good and fun to listen to. It really made me miss being part of a choir and a singing group (hearts, In Achord!).
All in all it was a delightful time. I think I remembered everything, better than I thought I would. We’re on our way to India now for 12 long days of class and work. Hopefully we’ll actually get there, what with all the terrorist bombings and human stampeding happening. We get a one day break amidst all the class for the Sea Olympics, wherein I have once again been roped into being our Sea’s (hall’s) representative to the Olympic Spelling Bee. I can’t escape it. I can’t believe it is October already, and by the time we get Chennai it will be the Ides of October. Our time in Asia is fast and furious, with no more than three days in between each port. Woo!
Wow. I wrote this post in several installments, and it is very, very long. Well done you for reading it all!