Computer-less in Cape Town

Over the past weekend my computer began having technical difficulties, and it turns out SA has a woefully inadequate knowledge of Macs. Long story short, it will be a while until I get my laptop back. In the mean time I'm in the school computer lab writing a quick update.

The weather has been a roller coaster ride these past few weeks. Today it is 80 degrees and sunny...over the weekend it was rainy and cold. I think I definitely made the right choice to study in Cape Town (as opposed to Europe) because as soon as the weather gets even a little cool or grey I get tired and antsy.

Here are a few one sentence updates on various activities from the past week:

Aquarium Field Trip - My kids loved it and were well behaved - the sharks and giant eels were a hit - and we had a dance / pizza party on the Water Front afterwards.

National Gallery - Monday is free museum day in Cape Town and it was raining, so I spent the morning perusing the mostly modern (and kind of underwhelming) collection of the National Gallery.

Cafe Ganesh - A girls' night at this charming Middle Eastern cafe resulted in copious amounts of pita consumption and excellent conversation.

Kirstenbosch Hike - Yesterday was glorious, so I broke in my new safari hiking boots by heading around the mountain to Kirstenbosch gardens and enjoying a zen-ful picnic lunch and several hours of reading in the sun.

Fat Cactus Friday - Last Friday we had a Mexican-themed house dinner at Fat Cactus complete with many margarita toasts to the semester and general reminiscing.

Stay tuned for - Later today a few of us are going to high tea at the ritzy Mount Nelson resort, and on Friday we are having a massive Fall Feast potluck where we introduce our South African friends to the wonderful tradition of Thanksgiving. I'm responsible for dessert, so I sure hope South Africa knows about pre-made pie crust.

More to come when I can steal another minute at a computer. It's time to begin reflecting on the semester and exploring the bigger picture implications of my time spent in Cape Town. Expect a detailed post soon.

The End of Classes

Classes ended yesterday, and I still can't believe that my semester at UCT is drawing to a close. I am definitely ready to be done with the academic aspect of my semester abroad (the classes were boring and the university was basically just inefficient and disappointing), but I feel like there are still so many things I want to do while in South Africa.

Last Thursday my house went out for a fun Ethiopian dinner downtown. We ate tons of delicious food with our hands and enjoyed a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony after the meal. On Saturday a few of us took a minibus all the way into Cape Town to check out the District Six Museum. The story of District Six is really interesting. It was one of the original twelve districts of Cape Town, and it developed into a bustling poor / working class neighborhood where blacks, whites, colored people, Indians, and immigrants all lived together and interacted. It was one of the most diverse areas in Cape Town, with tons of racial and cultural exchange and a unique community feeling. But during the apartheid era the government declared District Six a white only zone and forcibly removed over 60,000 people. They bulldozed the entire area to the ground because the city council wanted to rebuild Cape Town according to modern principles of city planning - there are really eerie aerial pictures of this desolate, completely barren patch of land right in the middle of down town Cape Town. The people who were removed from District Six were of course separated into their respective races, and working class blacks ended up in squalid townships outside of the city. Anyway, the museum just tells the story of District Six and has lots of interesting information and testimony provided by ex-residents. We all learned a lot and had a fun time exploring.

On Monday evening we had another house dinner, this time at a game grill in Rondebosch. The specials include everything from ostrich to warthog (although I got a Greek salad and some stuffed mushrooms...after a brief flirtation with South African meat, I'm back to being almost completely vegetarian). People were moaning and groaning that the gourmet steaks were 120 rand - around 12 USD - and I am not looking forward to US prices. In particular I am going to miss the wonderful, cheap South African wine. High quality and delicious pinotage is only around 30 or maybe 40 rand a bottle, which is going to be hard to beat.

Last night we had our final CIEE dinner at a touristy place in Stellenbosch. There was a 30 meter long buffet with every type of African food you could imagine, and traditional African dancers entertained us while we ate outside under the stars. Cozy safari blankets and fires kept us warm, and everyone had a great time. To complete the night we went out for drinks and live music in Observatory.

Although I was thrilled to have my last UCT lecture yesterday, I have to say that I am not looking forward to leaving the kids I work with at Baphumelele. Over the past semester I have grown incredibly close with them, and several have asked me to adopt them. I can't wait to take them on the field trip to the aquarium this Saturday...hopefully it will be give them a break from their daily life at the children's home. I know that I am just one of a long string of American student volunteers who rotate through their lives every six months, but I really hope that I provided my kids with a few fun after school activities and memories. I can definitely tell that their English has improved a little bit, if nothing else. I will miss them a lot, and they definitely gave meaning to my time here in Cape Town.

I have a two week break here before my exams start, so I am planning to do as much as possible during that time. Some friends and I are trying to figure out a way to get out of Cape Town for a bit, so I will definitely keep everyone updated. Although this is the beginning of the end of my amazing experience in South Africa, I absolutely am going to make the most of the time I have left.

Robben Island

This past weekend I finally made it out to Robben Island - one of the most iconic / obligatory Cape Town sites. On Saturday we had a nice breakfast in Rondebosch and then took a cab down to the Water Front. Amazingly, I had not been back to the Water Front since my first day in Cape Town, and it was incredible to see what a change of perspective three months has given me. I really still can't believe what a beautiful place Cape Town is. The weather has also taken an unseasonably pleasant turn, with highs in the low 70s and plenty of sunshine. Anyway, from the Water Front we took a ferry out to the island. On the ride we managed to spot a few penguins swimming in the ocean. The island has an interesting ecological feeling that is quite different from the mainland. Due to the introduction of eucalyptus trees and rabbits, the island is incredibly dry...like a desert. In the 1970s they tried to set traps for the rabbit population, but rabbits can sense when they are being threatened and their defense mechanism is to multiply even more rapidly than usually. So basically there are rabbits EVERYWHERE. 

We took a bus tour around the island, which today still houses around 200 people. There is one school, one post office, and one grocery store. The main infrastructure of the island obviously revolves around the prison, where almost all of the most famous anti-apartheid and ANC members spent at least some time before the democratic transition. According to trusty Wikipedia, over 3,000 men were imprisoned there between 1961 and 1991 (women were kept elsewhere on the mainland). 

The highlight of the visit was a cell tour given by an ex-political prisoner. Our tour guide had been imprisoned for six years, and it was fascinating to hear an inside perspective of life on Robben Island. Life as a prisoner was brutal and humiliating, but the men found ways to secretly communicate and even continue their studies. We visited Mandela's cell, and it was smaller than I ever imagined. The fact that he could spend 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment there and then re-enter South African society as one of the most dignified, effective, and forgiving leaders of the 20th century is really a testament to what a hero he is.

For the rest of the day we wandered around and explored the Water Front, followed by a delicious house dinner consisting of homemade pizza and a huge salad. Since then I've mostly been scrambling to finish up final papers and take last minute class tests - classes end in exactly one week! I definitely want to make the most of my time here as the entire experience begins to wind down, so hopefully I will have lots of interesting updates in the next couple of weeks. One of the things I'm looking most forward to is taking my Baphumelele kids on a field-trip to the Cape Town Aquarium a week from Saturday! For now though, it's time to do a bit of reading and figure out tonight's dinner plans. Adios!

Rainy Days

Sorry about the lack of updating - the South African internet provider my house uses has disabled the use of all google applications including Gmail (and my USC email) and blogger.com. I'm stealing a few minutes between classes here on campus to update using the UCT network. 

Fall is slowly settling down here in Cape Town, and days are getting rainy and shorter. We still do what we can to get out and do interesting things. Last Monday night we went down to Long Street to hear my friend's brother perform stand-up comedy at Zula Lounge. Parts of it were pretty darn funny, and it was definitely something different. During last week very little eventful happened. There were TWO public holidays...one last Monday and one on Friday. On Friday my house had a huge braai to celebrate. We were only allowed to invite South Africans (no other study abroad students), so it was a great way to meet people. The party started at around 10:00 in the morning with a pancake breakfast with my housemates. Other people started trickling in around noon, and the meat was cooking on the braai from 1:00 to 5:00. Braai is an amazing word. It's an adjective (as in braai meat or braai seasoning), a verb (let's braai or I'm going to braai up this lamb), and also a noun with several different meanings (the braai is the grill itself as well as the process of having a barbeque). All in all the day was fun and relaxing.

On Saturday a few of us tried to go scuba diving near Simon's Town in False Bay. Now I knew the water was going to be really, really cold, but I could not possibly have expected exactly what the experience of diving in that water would be like. I've dived in San Diego before where the water was around 60 degrees, and that was painful. But when I first rolled off the boat and hit the 46 degree water of the Western Cape, I had to stifle a scream. I basically had a miserable time and thought I was going to die the entire dive, and my buddy and I had to come up early together because we were just too cold. The worst part was we couldn't see anything. There was some pretty soft coral and a few sponges, and that was literally it. Although we had signed up from a second dive, not one of us could face going in that water again, so we all went and had lunch while the rest of our group dived yet again. In our defense, the other people we were diving with had dry suits, while we were outfitted in old smelly wetsuits and weren't even given gloves. Oh well, it was a crazy experience and definitely rivaled the bungee jump in terms of wildest things I've done here. 

On Saturday night my house went to a fun African drumming concert at a cool venue called The Assembly in downtown Cape Town. Everyone had a great time, and we all went for some late night falafel on Long Street after the show.

I'm definitely getting a bit antsy now that the weather is cooling off and the end of the semester is in sight. As much as I love Cape Town, I'm really beginning to miss my independence. As a girl, I'm getting tired of not being able to take public transportation by myself or walk anywhere after 6:00 PM (which is when it gets dark now). I've experience most of the easily accessible things that there are to do and see around Cape Town, and I have to say I'm itching to go farther afield and have new experiences. Unfortunately, this would require getting a liked-minded group of people together, and everyone is quite busy with the last three weeks of classes coming up. 

It's time to go to my philosophy class and debate about free will and Schopenhauer. Hopefully it won't be so long until my next update!