Days 31-35. SOUTH AFRICA.

       

South Africa is a land of complete contrasts. Part of the reason it took me so long to compose this blog entry was because of tests, and being tired, and just being lazy. More importantly, I needed a few days to digest what I had experienced. It was tough. Not in the literal sense of the word; the streets were safe and the sights beautiful, but it was tough on the mind.

       South Africa has a disturbing past. All the way from 1905, the British enacted laws to disenfranchise those of color in the country. Blacks were forcefully relocated, denied jobs, denied equality, and forced to carry ‘pass books’with them at all times in the street. Where they lived, where they worked, and what they did were heavily monitored and restricted; it was a system with many parallels to pre-1964 United States. But South Africa’s Apartheid laws did not change in 1964, in fact, they got worse.

       It wasn’t until 1994 that those laws were reversed. Led by Nelson Mandela, the country finally realized its new purpose, to provide an equal life for all.

       Right. Valiant and beautiful, South Africa’s story is. However, it just doesn’t play out like a fairy tale. Instead, it plays out, as I said, like a land of contrasts. The rich got richer. The beautiful got so much more beautiful. The cities got bigger and grander and more popular (The country host’s the World Cup next year). But something else happened…the poor got poorer. Much. Poorer. And they became juxtaposed, just miles from all of that beauty on an amazing cape peninsula.

       The people, though: rich, poor, taxi driver or businessman are strong, proud, and determined. They are friendly and welcoming, and made it devastating to leave their home only 5 days after arriving

---

       We were late getting into Cape Town. At 6, I awoke and went up to deck 7 to see…. Nothing. It was the densest fog I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t see 5 feet off of the bow of the ship. The ship’s foghorn blew, as per regulation, every 60 seconds, scaring the be-jesus out of everyone outside…I love the foghorn…it’s so simple…it screams “I’m bigger than you, now get the F out of my way.”

       Anyway, it took an extra hour for the fog to lift over the coast, and we could proceed in to the harbor. Coming in was incredible. The sun was rising over table mountain as we headed toward the harbor. Simply beautiful. We could see the world cup stadium, still being built on the coast, and the city bustling to life on an early Wednesday morning. We pushed into the harbor, and were so giddy, because we were parked right in the MIDDLE of the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. For those of you like me, from Baltimore, imagine a giant ship 10 feet away from HarborPlace.

       The beauty, that day, was short-lived, because I had a busy 1st day ahead of me. I went along with an SAS trip to Khayelitsha, a large township 30 minutes away from downtown Cape Town. What is a township, you ask? It is a place where extremely impoverished South African blacks live. I didn’t know what to expect, and I never could imagine explaining it. I encourage you, as you read this, to google Khayelitsha, or “South African township”so you can get an idea along with my words.

       The township is shacks. Corrugated metal shacks with no doors and sometimes no roof. If there is a roof, it’s held down with cinder blocks, tire rims, or whatever heavy metal object will keep the wind from lofting it up. These shacks are constructed with less than a foot between each other, with small streets that run through them. You’re probably imagining a village-like scenario, in which there are 30 shacks or 100 shacks or some equally small number accessible from one main road. That’s what I imagined.

       Instead, what I saw was sensory overload. 1.3 million. I’ll say that again. One point three MILLION people live in Khayelitsha. That’s almost 3 of all Baltimore. If you can manage to get to a vantage point, everywhere you look, 360 degrees around as far as the eye can see are corrugated roofs. And that’s it. It’s hard to describe, and harder to write, as anger and sadness flow just by typing this. It hurt to see these people in such conditions, humans, people who were only there because long ago people decided they didn’t deserve what others do. They run stringy wires from electric poles to get electricity that is unsafe and unreliable. Their bathrooms are holes in the ground shared by as many as 10 ‘residences’at a time. The shacks are roughly 5 feet by 10 feet in dimension, and sleep 2-6 people. This is no joke. This is the real thing.

       Okay. Break. That was tough.

       What I found in the township lifted me truly. There was no sadness, no look of remorse or self pity present anywhere. The children saw our bus and our white skin and ran towards us, tears in their eyes. They hugged and kissed and jumped on us. They longed to see our cameras and our clothes, and to high-five us. The parents, who were sometimes around, smiled and waved. We learned that what we were doing was as beneficial to the township as the experience was to us. My tour guide Jimmy told me that generations of young blacks have been raised to hate their white neighbors for what they’ve done (or watched being done). By being here, Jimmy said, we were helping the young children to break down barriers and trust whites again. We drove throughout Khayelitsha, stopping in different craft markets and mission-houses, as well as one particularly touching story.

       Vicki, a resident of Khayelitsha decided to open a bed and breakfast in the township. Over the years, the B&B has grown to 6 beds, and she take 0 profit from the venture. Instead, 100% of the profit goes to her school, which she runs behind the B&B for local kids in her township. She was inspirational. I want to share one thing she said with you all. She came aboard our bus before we got off and told us one thing:

“Please don’t give the children any money. If you want to donate, we love you, and have places for you to donate. But if you give the children change, maybe tomorrow the next group won’t…and they’ll get upset. And maybe instead of asking, they’ll reach for money. Years later, instead of reaching, they might steal, or become violent for money. We don’t ever want that,”Vicki said. She then ended with something that stuck with me the rest of the time in SA, “We may be poor. But we are proud. We are very proud people.”

The rest of the day was spent looking around and touring, before returning to the ship at 6 pm, exhausted from a long day facing a world I denied ever existed.

That night, Chazz, Caroline, Alicia and I had dinner on the waterfront and made friends with our 19-year old waitress Waranita. We planned on seeing her later in the week. That night, we went out to explore Cape Town’s world-renowned nightlife on Long street.

       On the second day in CT, I continued my education on Apartheid. I had signed up for a full 10-hour tour of all of the historical sights in Cape Town. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but we made many rounds to some very inspirational places. This included the District Six museum, a tribute to an area of the city which was deemed to be “White only”in which all of its non-‘white’residents were forced out. This included Blacks, Jews, etc. On the outside of the building was a very moving plaque, whose words are below:

“ALL WHO PASS BY

REMEMBER WITH SHAME THE MANY THOUSANDS
OF PEOPLE WHO LIVED FOR GENERATIONS
IN DISTRICT SIX AND OTHER PARTS OF THIS
CITY, AND WERE FORCED BY LAW TO
LEAVE THEIR HOMES BECAUSE OF THE
COLOUR OF THEIR SKINS

FATHER FORGIVE US”

       We were also treated to visiting Robben Island, a small stretch of land just a few miles off of Cape Town’s shores. Robben Island was a prison camp, set up for black criminals and ‘political criminals’who publicly opposed Apartheid. As you can imagine, the prison was corrupt, and prisioners were held for years beyond their supposed discharge date. We were shown around by a former prisoner of Robben Island, which was amazing. To hear his story and have him point out where he slept, ate, and lived for 8 years was incredible. We also saw Nelson Mandela’s cell on the island. On a completely unrelated note, the views of the city from the island were truly something. Of course we took lots of pictures and basked in the sun of the 75 degree day.

       When we got back, a bunch of us went to Mitchell’s, a great pub with fun food we never get on the ship (See: nachos, burgers, homebrewed beers). I went to sleep that night history-ed out from my 2 days exploring Cape Town’s past. I felt like I had an amazing time experiencing things that every human should see. I remind myself constantly that I am not on vacation; seeing sometimes painful things is what Semester-At-Sea is all about.

       
       The next day, I focused on Cape Town’s positive future, and it has a lot of it. Alicia, Lia, Caroline and I hailed a great cabby named Kallie who took us to our biggest adventure yet: Table Mountain.

       Table Mountain is imposing on Cape Town’s Skyline. It sits directly behind the big buildings and the touristy attractions, and doesn’t apologize for its imposition. It is stunning, a near straight up rock with a completely flat top. Standing 3,563 above the city, It is big, and beautiful.

       Yours truly, however, having successfully scaled the likes of Masada in Israel and Uluru in Australia (as well as many a hill in the Camp Tall Timbers, West Virginia), did not worry too much. But at 3,563 feet, I probably should have.

I donned some good shoes, slathered on enough sunscreen to actually visit the sun, pretended to stretch (everybody else was doing it, I wanted to look official), and took off for the trail. We were told 2 hours to the top…I figured it was an overestimation for the less qualified people than myself. What I found, however was one of the hardest climbs ever! It was SO HARD. At one point, It was difficult to lift my foot to take one more step. I hanged with Lia, and we exchanged inspirational speeches when each other faltered. We were determined, however, and we made it. 6 hours later. No, just kidding, but it felt that long. It was such a feeling of accomplishment…I can’t even tell you. I felt so proud to have made it. I gorged myself on blue PowerAdes and sandwiches to replenish what I had lost in sweat for the past 2 hours climbing. The view at the top was well worth the hardships of climbing. We could spot everything from Robben Island in the distance to the MV Explorer, who looked like a toy boat from that height.

I should also mention that Alicia, who stands at an imposing 4 feet 10 inches took a lot of crap from us (me) about how difficult it must be for her to get up the rock. She was, however, the first one to reach the top, and deserves public recognition right here and now.

Afterward, I took a few hours to go to a hotel right by the ship with my laptop to get free internet and connect with people at home. I was able to skype with Mom, Dad, MomMom, Grandpop, Steph and Jenna, as well as Brownstein/Sami and Cara. I tried waking up others (steve) but to no avail. Because the internet was free, I had to pretend like I was there for another reason, so I kept ordering orange Fantas from the bartender so they wouldn’t kick us out. By the end, I probably paid the same amount for Fantas that I would have to an internet café, but…oh well.

Once I was skyped out, I got prepped for something that I am really happy I did- a real live South African RUGBY GAME. Nate, Alicia, Caroline and I went to Newlands stadium to watch the mighty Cape Town Stormers battle the Australia’s Queenstown Reds. I’ve always maintained that you can learn a lot about a place by its sporting events, and I definitely agree. After a few minutes, and a bunch of questions to the friendly South African seated behind me, I picked up the game pretty well. What an insane game…and the crowd was loads of fun to be with. Rugby, for those of you who don’t know, is like football, soccer and kickboxing rolled into one. And when one of them gets injured…they don’t stop. The medics run on the field dodging the players, and treat the injured guy while play continues…no biggie.

We had a great time at the game. As a sports fanatic of all sorts, I really loved to see what other people go nuts for. For the rest of the stay in Cape Town, everyone we talked to was thrilled we made it to ‘the big game.’We returned to Mitchell’s for some drinks with friends later that night, including ‘Fishbowls’and ‘Springboks,’both famous Capetonian drinks.

On our fourth day, Justin, Lia, Alicia, Brandon and I decided we wanted to see the wine lands. Cape Town is famous for their wine, and the locals have been known to get quite annoyed if you compare their pride and joy with that of Napa Valley or France. We got a great cab to stay with us for hire for the entire day for R800 (about 80 US dollars), and he took us deep into the wine country. As we pulled into our first stop, Spier Vineyards, we could immediately tell something was up. There were people directing traffic and tons of activity. Apparently, we happened to show up on their one-day annual wine festival: our luck was amazing. The place was incredible. We were treated to different types of red and white wine as well as live music, unbelievable food and fun activities. One of those was ‘grape stomping,’which is exactly as it sounds. They take giant half-barrels of grapes and put you in it, and you stomp on them to make juice. It was so much fun.

The winery also boasts a cheetah sanctuary, so of course we had to see them. We left Spier after like 3 hours, and went to one other smaller winery called Boschendal. It was so beautiful, surrounded by mountains. We enjoyed some wine-tasting and cheese-eating in a great little table under a huge oak tree. Couldn’t have gotten better if we tried.


Okay, now here was one of the best parts of the trip thus far. My Aunt Barbara had hooked me up with the name and phone number of family in Cape Town. They weren’t there this week, but they, in turn gave me the number of their friends, Mervyn and Ilana who live in Cape Town. With nothing to lose, I emailed the them last week to ask if they would be interested in meeting us for lunch or dinner. Being the amazing people they are, the invited me to Mervyn’s birthday party, which was while we were in the country. And so, that night, Alicia and I were picked up by Bron, their 23-year old daughter and we were taken to their house for a Braai, the South African equivalent of a BBQ.

We had the best time, eating and chatting with them and their friends. Theyw ere so welcoming and receptive towards us, and were such a pleasure. I feel like I got such a good idea of life in South Africa from chatting with everyone. I asked them everything from current politics to living under Apartheid in years past. We shared a great meal and an unbelievable desert with them before catching a cab back to the city. We met up with everyone else and had a great last night in Cape Town at the waterfront and Long st.

My final day was spent shmying through craft markets and city streets. I got lunch and bought souvenirs. I had stopped by a tourist kiosk to ask what I should be doing during my last 12 hours in the city, and everything they had listed, I said “already done.”From Townships to Wine, from Mountains to Islands, I had truly had a great cultural time in Cape Town.

---

       When I returned to the ship an hour before on-ship time, It was time to ascend the gangway for the last time in South Africa. It was difficult. Cape Town, more than any other port, was one of discovery and understanding. It is a place with its own unique problems that it must work through. The people and the culture, rich or poor, are positive despite their country’s problems.

       Before leaving the land, a few of my friends came to the conclusion that we didn’t we had a stronger urge to remain in this port than any other so far. I think that that stems from the hospitality and the friendly nature of the South Africans, and I really thank our hosts over the past week. Whether they’re Vicki, a poor township B&B owner, or an already well-to-do family, you can tell something is just…different. As the US Consulate said when she boarded the ship on day 1 before debarking to explore the country, “South Africa welcomes you, at a most pivotal time in their history!”That’s true to some extent. The hoopla of independence is long gone, and now it’s just a lot of work ahead of them. It’s a long road ahead for most of the countries on our itinerary, really, and it’s a privelage to see how each culture deals with them. South Africa has a big election coming up, and I hope that some day when I return the contrasts are only visible in the people, not their living conditions.

       

       As our host for the past 35 days, the continent of Africa has taught me much about who I am, and where my culture fits in the world. Africa has not fallen on as much fortune as other places in the world. Their resources, their people, and their lands have been exploited for far too long. It’s important to remember, also, that wars and genocide still exist on the continent even today. Still, the biggest lesson I’ve gotten is from its people. They are…human. From the Moroccans who ushered me into their shop to the bus driver in Namibia who spoke an ancient language with ‘clicks,’they were like you and I. They were happy, probably happier with less than most Americans with more. The news tends to view Africa as an exotic place; we shouldn’t be surprised, CNN asserts, that genocide is still occurring. It’s not exotic, it’s just different…but these are still people, wonderful people who are welcoming and accepting. To them, I apologize eternally for disregarding them in my mind for 20 years, and hope never to do so again.

And to the Atlantic Ocean, which we left officially last night…I’ll see you in May.

Thanks for reading,

       Greg.


PS. We pushed forward an hour yesterday and an hour again tonight. We are now EST + 9 hours.