I had been excited for Tess to come visit since the first week I arrived in CT. My excitement for her to come, however, kind of evolved the longer I was here. First, it was excitement to show off my know home. Not to brag, but it really felt and still feels like Cape Town is giving me by far the best abroad experience possible. And since it is not located in Europe, none of my fellow abroadians would be able to visit/become jealous. I wanted a testament to exactly how special of a place I had lucked into. After about a month, I was more excited to see Tess because I missed her. It is hard being on the other side of the world. My roommate, who flew from JFK, said the flight to Johannesburg is the second longest one-way flight in the world, and that she isn’t able to fly straight back because of wind currents. The flight from Cape Town to SF is about 7 hours longer than that. Plus, I think at the time I was discouraged by the number of Americans here, and the realization that most of my “abroad friends” would be American. If I was going to hang out with Americans for a semester, I would rather they have been my best friends from home. Tess, in visiting, made that possible for a week.
But a month after that, a few weeks before Tess’s arrival, I really began to love it in a “this is home” sort of way. Still excited to see one of my best friends again, I was also stoked for the excuse to finish my list of touristy must-do’s. By this time I felt like a Cape Town resident, and it would feel weird for me to take a tour of Robben Island or hike Table Mountain, the activities that fill every tour book (ironically, I still haven’t done either, and am writing this on the day I had planned to do a make-up hike…it’s raining). Really though, I was just excited for a change of pace and a taste from home. Everyone else in my house receives a package every other week, so it was definitely time to remember the other side of the world still remembered me.
So Tess arrived on a Saturday afternoon, bearing a million American goods that I had been missing: Febreese, makeup, ballpoint pens, chocolate covered coffee beans and Rolos (her surprises for me!), and a frat’s supply of red cups and ping pong balls (a surprise for the boys in my house).
The house was kind of surprised that the “little sister” who I had been so excited to see actually looked and acted older than me. Anyways, we went out that night to Long Street and ended up spending most of the night dancing at a trashy Irish pub, our drinking sponsored by a 30 year old bald guy with metal spikes in his mouth and no class, and his 7 foot tall friend. By the end of the night, we were handing the drinks off to our guy friends, but the drinks kept coming. That said, they really financed the fun for most of our 10-person entourage.I had been excited for the next day since I planned it two weeks ago. Nonki, one of my friends from doing volunteer work (and probably the most stylish person I have ever been friends with), offered to give us a township tour. Her dad is a preacher in Gugulethu (I know this is spelled wrong), the second biggest township in Cape Town, and she lived with her family in a nice house behind the church (still, in the township). She and her brother drove us through the township, stopping to talk about the history and small, superficial changes that were made after Apartheid (for example, the street names have been changed from the names of Apartheid leaders to numbers).
We also got to walk inside a couple of homes and meet some friends of her church. The church had built one of them a home after her parents died, and she takes care of her younger brother there as she works and goes to school; she showed off her faded prom photos to us with a huge smile, and seemed tickled when I complimented her bright blue comforter. Then, we went inside a worker’s hostel, where a company houses about 8 workers in bunkbeds in as small a room as they would fit. Then, the workers each wedge in their families (wife, sometimes up to 7 kids), who also sleep in the room or pile onto their beds.
Nonki told us stories about how so many people are starving in townships that some just wait for the weekends to eat, since they know there will be a couple of funerals that will have free food. We also went to her home where I met her father, the first preacher in CT to address AIDS. When he started preaching about AIDS awareness and support, the area knew him as the AIDS Preacher; now, every church has copied him. I asked him if life has actually changed for many people since Apartheid, and he said very few. There are some, like Nonki, who have had the privilege to attend strong schools and rise above, and some black businessmen who have been able to thrive, but these are rarities and for most, life is just as horrible as it was before.
Nonki also took us to a giant braii (South African for barbecue) called Mzoli’s. This restaurant is famous around CT, and is listed in most tour books. It’s the only time I saw any white people that day (and the only place everyone we drove by didn’t stare at me…in the neighborhoods, people would tap each other to draw attention to Tess and me, and then they would start talking to us in Xhosa and Nonki would translate and tell us how to reply). When we first arrived at Mzoli’s, Nonki ran into one of her dad’s friends from church, and started talking to him. As Tess and I were waiting for her, this big black smiling man in a pressed white shirt (striped in rainbow colors) walked up and stuck out his hand. I didn’t know what to do, thinking he was some creepy stranger. After I extended my hand (after an awkwardly long pause), he enveloped me in a huge hug. I felt like I was drowning, with no idea what was going on. When he finally released me, Nonki turned around: “Oh, you met Mzoli!” Apparently Nonki was also church friends with him. Mzoli, known as a “black diamond” (black person who became very very successful after Apartheid), is a Cape Town celebrity, especially in the black community. He struck it rich by starting Mzoli’s, which works something like this: you walk into a glad-covered meat counter, which features about 10 bowls of raw meat (lamb, sausage, chicken, beef, etc.). You tell her the kinds of meat you want, like you’re ordering toppings for a salad, and she throws them all into a bowl. Then, you take the bowl to the cash register, where they weight your meat and charge you strikingly low prices for it (for the 4 of us, it was R9 (about $9.50). Then you walk your bowl back to the kitchen, where there are bowls of raw meat all over the table/ground, and a couple of chefs cooking a bowl at a time on the grill. Then you go outside, sit down, and wait several hours for your meat to cook (you have to go back and check on it every hour or so, since they don’t tell you when its done). Outside is totally crowded, and local DJ’s come and play music so loud that it’s hard to hear people speak. So our conversation was limited, but the vibe was great. Some people were dancing, some playing cards, some smoking hubbly bubbly (hookah…seriously). Tess and I were just people watching like crazy. Oh, and then Nonki and her brother started oogling over a guy sitting a couple of tables to our left. “He’s a huge South African actor!” said Nonki. I recognized him from Jerusalema (like the South African American Gangster; watch it, it’s great). Then the meat came. It was delicious. They just set the bowl in the middle of the table, and everyone sits around and eats it with their fingers, or with pap (a sticky mix between corn meal and mashed potatoes, but made of rice). All of us were filled, and Nonki was able to take home a box of leftovers. This ended up being my favorite day in Cape Town to date.The next day Tess went to the winelands and I went to school. Not too exciting. We did, however, get to eat at Hussar Grille afterwards.
It’s a fancy restaurant where I ordered a lifetime’s supply of warthog ribs and Tess got a trio of game meat (antelope, buffalo, I don’t know what else). It was delicious, and we ate leftovers for dinner the next night.The day after that, we went to Kalksbaii (pronounced “Kalk Bay” hehehe), where we did a lot of vintage/craft shopping, and sat on the beach for a while. Then we took a taxi to Noordhoek, where we rode horses along the beach. It was surreal, by far the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. The sky was clear, there were no footprints on the sand, and the white sun bounced off of the light blue water. We tried for photos, but I knew there was know way we could capture it.
The next day we went shopping on Long Street, and then for massages at Mount Nelson, a bougie spa downtown (the South African Claremont, but at ¼ the price). We each got a 80-minute hot stone massage (and they put us in the couples room, so we were next to each other). It was the best massage I’ve ever gotten. One funny thing though: instead of playing soft massagy music, they played a playlist of the masseuse’s favorite songs, including Jason Mraz and Mariah Carey. And every once and again he would leave my table to go change the song on his iPod. Later that night, we went to watch Spoken Word downtown, since one of my housemates was going to perform (he was the only white performer all night, and the whole place was stunned). Before that, we ate at Africa Café, where for R200 each we ate a 10-course meal that featured dishes from all over Africa. I loved it, until it made me sick at the slam poetry.
Thursday we went to a political debate for the election, which featured leaders from each of the main parties. It was really really interesting for both of us, but probably in different ways. Here’s a rundown of the parties:
- ANC: The incumbent, which has been the ruling party since Mandela. Because all the black diamonds support this party, because it made it possible for them to become rich, most of the black population support this party no matter what. Which is too bad, since the party is becoming corrupt, and their presidential candidate, Jacob Zuma, is a sex offender who is famous for political favors, and didn’t even graduate from high school.
- DA: The “rich white party.” They control CT politics, and Helen Zille, their presidential candidate, has been voted the best mayor in the world for her work in Cape Town.
- COPE: Congress of the People… they split off of the ANC this year, so they aren’t very big. Still, they're the party I would vote for if I could.
- ID: The South African Green Party. That’s all I know about them.
The debate consisted of Trevor Manuel, the Finance Minister (representing the ANC), shit-talking the other parties, with the other parties trying to team up and talk trash about his party’s corruption. After the debate finished, groups of ANC and DA supporters congregated on the steps outside of the event, and each started singing chants to support their parties. All of these students were black, but the black DA supporters were all female.
Friday we were planning to hike Table Mountain because I didn’t have class, but it was rainy. We went to the mall instead. Then, we went home and Tess packed (her stuff and some of mine to take home, and a box for her to mail domestically for one of my roommates), and they we took her to the airport and she flew away. And then I went home and did more homework.
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